Travelling Home

After an amazing day, we set our alarms for 4am but got a rude awakening at 3:15 with a Gideon nosebleed. After clean-up and a restless nap, we rolled out to meet our scheduled 4:45 Uber. No traffic and we were at the Kobe airport at 5:30 for our 7:05 flight. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that the airport didn’t open until 6:00. First time that’s happened to us. We stood around outside the doors and were able to be first in line with quick check-in and no issues getting on the flight. On the way to Tokyo, we got a final goodbye from the beautiful Mt. Fuji out our windows. A short connection and some last minute purchases at the vending machines to use up the yen on our transit cards and it was 14 hours to Paris. The flight was smooth and not bad at all - although very minimal sleeping which would come back to haunt us later. We landed early and then the day went downhill quickly.

Passport control took such a long time since we can’t use the e-gates with kids under 12. Not sure why the French can’t figure out efficiency but after making it through, we decided to take the metro to Gare du Nord for the Eurostar home. Paris did not disappoint us as it continues to have the worst (and most costly) transit ticketing system of any of the 30 countries we have visited. It’s certainly clear that they don’t have any Japanese employees. After getting to the train station, we had 12 minutes to spare before check-in and got some burritos for the train. Then we joined the ridiculous queue for the Eurostar. Though we made it on time, they waited until 30 minutes before the train departed to let everyone through first ticket check, then French border control (still terrible) then UK border control (also not great) and THEN security. This is when we had our suitcase pulled and all 4 Japanese chef knives confiscated. We begged and pleaded and asked if we could ship them or even come back to pick them next week but the only option they gave us was to miss the train (last one for the day) and leave the terminal. Even though Eurostar allows chef knives using their boxes, no one knew this policy and we couldn’t convince them as the train was leaving in 10 minutes. We ended up running down the platform, dropped our food, boarded an overbooked train with 2 of our seats taken by someone else and had to navigate 5 cars (since we got on in the middle as they blew the whistle) with 8 pieces of luggage and 5 backpacks with three tired kids and 2 very upset adults. After 30 minutes of back and forth with luggage and the conductor, we finally settled and dozed for the 2.5 train to London (though Tige had to sit in a separate car). Once we arrived, we could barely awaken the boys as it had now been 24 hours since awakening in Osaka. Thank goodness for Elliot’s resilience. We got all the luggage and kids to the underground to Marylebone and made our 30 minute train to Beaconsfield. From there it was a short Uber home. Exhausted and quite sad about our lost knives, we were happy to see Stevie and Potato before crashing in our own beds. Unfortunately, a tough way to end a beautiful trip but we made it safely and together.Read more