We had a full day in Osaka today and it was most enjoyable! It started out with a stop at Vie De France, a bakery, for some breakfast bakery treats and coffee followed by a short train trip to Osaka Castle. There were a fair few people hanging out about the castle and on the grounds but unfortunately the castle was closed for the New Years period which was something we had forgotten happens from last trip. We walked about the gardens for a bit and got some ju...

Hmm I took like two photos today and they were both of food. We spent the majority of the day moving from Kawaguchiko to Osaka which took 6 different trains. The first three were okay but when we got onto the Shinkansen there were no seats and for 40mins we had to stand around. Fortunately at the first stop after we got on a crap load of people got off so we finally got a seat and the journey was a lot better after that. When we finally got to our hostel in Osa...

We had a terrific day today! We had set our alarm for 6am to try and get out to see the sunrise but we didn't manage to get up in time for that. Instead we were up and ready to go by 9am. Just a few hours later. We hired bikes from the hostel and set out towards the river. I was pretty rusty on riding a bike and we had to spend a while practising in an empty carpark before we could go any further. Luckily Shannon was a patient teacher. For breakfast we had so...

Merry Christmas! We had a superb day! We awoke at around 8am and showered and dressed. Unfortunately this hostel does not have a breakfast service so we ventured out straight away to head to the amusement park and hopefully find some food on the walk to the station. When we got to the station we ended up having a small breakfast of maple scrolls and caramel cappuccino before hopping on the train. The theme park, Fuji-Q Highland, was only one stop away so it...

Today was a bit of a nothing day whilst we moved from Yudanaka to Kawaguchiko. We started out with breakfast at Shimaya and our normal routine of having a bath. We then packed up our things and went down to check out. Yumoto-san asked to get a photo of us with him and his wife before we left which I guess is something he does with all of his guests so that was nice. We also got given a five yen good luck ribbon to tie to our bags. His daughter then gave us a li...