We came to Japan with quite some expectations. For Molly and Joanna it was where we were going to see their first ‘friend’ on the trip: Minji who had been in Molly’s class at school in Dubai. For Tom it was probably the country he was most looking forward to, especially the food. For me it was a return after spending a month in two consecutive uni summers there with memories of delicious food, perfectly manicured zen gardens, pristine temple complexes and bright city lights. Is it bad to say it fell short of our expectations?

Highlights were the unexpected, new experiences: staying with friends, visiting the art islands of Setouchi and discovering alternative parts of the cities through our runs, Kyoto is up there in top 5 runs of the tour so far.

For me the food was a serious disappointment: without a doubt the hardest place to be a celiac. There was little adaption – the best I would get would be a dry piece of meat or fish and white rice. So much white rice and just not enough salad or vegetables. It was frustrating as I love Japanese food and it’s easy to make it work, by using Tamari instead of soy sauce there’s really very little problem. We even came across a sign on the door of (admittedly an udon specialist restaurant) that those on a wheat free diet couldn’t be accommodated. Ouch.

Travel wasn’t straight forward either. We flew from Seoul to Osaka, an easy flight, the journey only made lengthier by the protracted process of swapping our Japan Rail pass vouchers for tickets on arrival at Kansai International Airport. It had taken a lot of time researching the various options for rail travel in Japan, despite me having been before. There are just so many different options, all of them expensive! Because we were going to slightly unusual places, down to Okayama to get the boat to Naoshima and up to Toyama before going to Tokyo, it worked out best to get two separate passes, a JR West rail pass for 5 days, followed by a Hokuriku Arch Pass for 7 days, with our final two days in Tokyo without a pass (which was in itself annoying as we were staying on the Yamanote line where our passes would have been valid).

Despite best laid plans we did make two mistakes: the first our fault, taking a Shinkansen in a section that wasn’t covered so having to pay the difference, the other not our fault as we had to go the long way round to Tokyo due to typhoon flooding, we got away with that one. On reflection we didn’t save much money in buying the passes, although it was useful not having to buy a ticket every time we reached a station. I think we had been spoilt by the trains in China too, as of course they were brilliant in Japan but not that much faster or smoother than we had experienced just a few weeks earlier.

It was crazy that we completely missed seeing any rugby whilst in Japan during the world cup or any friends who were in Japan to watch games. In Kobe the fan zone was right by our hotel, but we weren’t there during a match. We were planning on making it to the fan zone in Tokyo to watch Japan v Scotland but were still on a train (heading through Yokohama as the match was going on). Rugby watching was going to be high on the agenda in Bali!!

It was a shame too that we missed the autumn leaves by a week or two, they seemed to be on the brink of changing as we were leaving. You realise how beautiful it would be – so a return visit a few weeks later or during spring cherry blossom is a must, but perhaps with my own bottle of Tamari and plans to self cater.