The Return Home

Today would be our final morning here in Japan. It has been a few days since we posted anything on the blog, this is due to nothing really note worthy happening with us. After the 6 hour train ride back to Tokyo we have essentially decided to make our last few days as a free days and let anyone do what they want as well as spend these days for us to do all of our remainder shopping. As such there wasn't really any point in posting till today.

Before I begin I should comment on our current lodging. After our last place in Fukuoka, which many of the others had gripes about (I thought it was perfectly fine), we are currently in a nice clean and spacious house. Located north of Ueno and I think just a bit East of where I stayed in Arakawa, the Airbnb fits everyone's criteria with the only negative being a spotty internet signal. We figured the house was designed in a way which blocks off reception as it affects both the wifi router and our phone's data. But on the plus side the owner of the Airbnb is very nice and helpful in making our stay comfortable. She had even brought us bread for breakfast and brought us to see the Sanja Matsuri festival. The festival I had noted on in our planning but the others decided against in the chance we would watch sumo (which of course never happened).

The Sanja Matsuri would be the final highlight for us in our final days here and let us witness the Japanese culture in person as it is happening. The festival happens in the Asakusa area where around 100 local businesses bring out portable shrines to the Sensoji Shrine to get blessings for good fortune for the year. The portable shrines are carried by a number of bearers and paraded through the streets. The atmosphere is great and the bearers were very enthusiastic about it. You can't help but grin as they pass by.

After seeing the festival, we essentially devoted the remainder of our time shopping and spending whatever leftover Japanese Yen we have left. I'm sure Colin will be posting a post-trip entry showing off whatever weird merchandise he ended up getting. I'll be compiling all of my travel maps together to show in a post-trip entry. But with that I'll end this post as we are finishing our repacking to go home.

I would say this trip was pretty good. Definitely better than the second trip as it felt less stressful and less frustrating, more because we learned from our past trip and understood that keeping a large group together wasn't the best idea. Instead this trip we made it so that we can all break up into smaller groups which meant better management and easier to meet everyone's desires. Even with my trip being hijacked midway by my siblings and missing out on Kyoto entirely, I would say it was a pretty good trip. Despite this I think my future trips (and of course there will be) will be in small groups or even a solo trip as I have come to accept that my trip mates are not the most considerate or even socially civilized and being with them for over two weeks is very taxing mentally. But whatever, I still hope to explore northern Japan and will continue to be one of my goals in my bucket list.