Today we were heading back to Tokyo so as you imagine it was a bit of a rush/mess getting everyone out of the hourse. To complicate things I had also arranged to meet up with Kenji, Sayuri and their daughter mao for lunch in Osaka! 
I stayed up late the night before making sure that all of the things that we had bought were packed…. which was a bit of a task!!! I had put Kyoto and Osaka first as I thought that we would be doing all cultural stuff and less shopping, so therefore less to lug back to Tokyo…… well that was the idea anyhow. What I hadnt planned on, was buying a tonne of things here. In any case I spent the night packing, well past everyone going to sleep so was not the happiest camper getting up the next morning. We made sure that the house was clean, Matt made some balloon animals to leave and we headed out with all our luggage. We had decided to put them in coin lockers
at the train station in Osaka so that after we had lunch we could pick them up and jump straight on a Shinkansen back to Tokyo. We did pretty well considering and only ended up being an hour late to meet up with kenji and his family (Gomen Kenji!) Kenji got a group picture of us all doing the Glico man (I cropped his head out of this picture) a really popular tourist spot in Osaka.
Kenji had already booked a restaurant in Nipponbashi so we went for a walk stopping for photos along the way! Kenji, Sayuri and Mao in the pram. Last time Chris and I had come to Japanm Sayuri had only just got pregnant with Mao, so it was quite special being able to meet her! We also go some more good news, Sayuri was pregnant with baby number 2.
Kenji remembered how much I liked beef so booked us into a really nice Sukiyaki restaurant! The food was amazing and we got to sit down on tatami mats at traditional low tables for lunch, it was a really cool experience!
Mao was getting a little restless while we were sitting down to lunch, so Matt pulled out some balloons to make some animals to keep her occupied. It turns out that balloon twisting is really popular in Japan and the staff in the restaurant all came out to watch Matt as he made them. Mao watched the entire time and hung onto them for the rest of the day which was really cute.
After lunch Kenji took us out on a walk in the arcades for dessert. I had my first crepe (the first of now many) Im not usually a cream or dessert person, but I make an exception for crepes.We decided to visit mandarake one more time before heading off. On the way there I spotted a bodyline and a Jane Marple!
We had already prebooked out tickets so we reluctantly head back to the train station and wished Kenji, Sayuri and Mao off. I managed to grab a picture of Chris just as the Shinkansen was pulling into the station (which was good timing really!) We grabbed some bentos from the convenience store on the platform, boarded the train and settled in for a long ride back, I recall sleeping most of the trip. Once back in Tokyo we head off to get to our next apartment which required that we get on the Monorail. It just so happened that we jumped on a Pokemon themed Monorail car! The latest Pokemon movie was just being released while we were over there so there was quite a bit of promotion about for it.
You can spot our apartment in the dark building in the middle picture below, we had the penthouse apartment on the top! The top floor consisted of 2 apartments owned by the same guy. We had the south apartment for the first portion of our stay and moved into the other one for the last couple of days. Both apartments were lovely and were quite spacious by Japanese standards. By the time we got home we were all pretty pooped, I think we all slept really well!
Continue on to Japan Day 8
♥ Alyssium♥
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