Operation Japan - no turning back now!

All done! I bought all the air tickets already and made all my SQ frequent flier redemptions. So Gillian and Trin will come with me and KH will take the rest. All our flight arrangements come with some penalty or the other if we cancel or change dates etc. So there will be no turning back now. KH and I have already booked our leave for the week.

I'm so excited I could just burst!!

Still thinking of whether to go to Kyoto or not. But I'll have to make up my mind fast because I will need to start making room reservations very, very soon.

Pros of going to Kyoto:

Autumn colours - the autumn foliage is better at Kyoto than Tokyo
Lovely gardens + serene temples
Less frenzied than Tokyo
A trip on the Romantic Sagano railway at Arashiyama
Visit the whale shark at the Osaka Aquarium
Riding on the shinkansen
The kids get to see an alternative side to Japan. If Tokyo is the capital of pop culture and Japanese kitsch, then Kyoto is the cultured, more contemplative end.
A glimpse into old Japan - unlike Tokyo which was bombed to bits during WW2, Kyoto was spared heavy bombing. So a lot of old neighbourhoods with atmospheric narrow lanes, wooden houses etc are still present today.

Cons of going to Kyoto:

More costly. We will either have to buy a JR Pass (28,300Y per adult and half price for children. Gillian is counted as an adult) or purchase a JTB Free and Easy plan which includes return shinkansen tickets and accomodation for a night (extensions are possible). The JTB plan will cost about (26,000Y if we stay an extra night, per adult)

Also, with a large brood I think it can be exhausting (for us!) to move about too much. Might be saner to stay put in ONE hotel/hostel for the duration of the trip instead of hopping around.

While the kids will enjoy the Sagano ride, and the whale shark, or even the ninja architecture of Nijo castle, I think bamboo groves, moss gardens, Zen gardens and autumn foliage will leave them bored? I can always argue that I've given them 2 days in Disney already so they better just 'kuai-kuai' follow me around Kyoto without complaining too much! I think Gillian, who is fascinated by the geishas in the very corny "Memoirs of A Geisha" movie (think the book is miles better!) might just be on my side of the camp, especially if I tell her that walking down Pontocho at dusk might reveal a maiko or two!

Or maybe we should just 'do' Tokyo this time and skip Kyoto - I could always come back alone sans kids and husband next time. Somehow I always get the feeling that there is a sense of solitaryness about Tokyo/Kyoto. In Tokyo, there always seems to be a rush of people, a lot of energy and purpose. But yet I just seem to sense, perhaps gut feel, that the place is made for lonely people. People who can dive into the big oceans of humanity there and just disappear. Lost in anonymity. Maybe it comes from reading about those lone Japanese who die at their desks without anyone noticing. Maybe all big cities are really lonely places - a contradiction in terms, but there's no better place to quietly fade into the wall-paper than a big city. And Tokyo, with 28million people, is a mega-city. As for Kyoto - ah, made for contemplative walks, solitude and reflection. Perfect for a solo travellers and lonely people I think. Everything that I've read about the places and the people so far leave me with the impression that can be lonely and yet, happy in one's loneliness in a place like Japan.

But of course, going with a noisy tribe of 1 unimpressed and bored KH and 5 kids - I don't think I will be in the right spirit to contemplate or explore any forms of these impressions I am getting. An exploration of loneliness will have to wait.