It’s not been a total secret, but on this, the last part of my journey my mum has come out to Japan to join me!

She is one of the bravest people I know. Brave maybe isn’t exactly the right word, but I don’t know many women in their 70s who would travel on their own to such a unique place as Japan, do you?

Tonight we’d arranged a tour to see the sights of Shibuya (think of that crazy mess of zebra crossings) and Shijuku the area where we’re staying. Let’s just say the tour was a let down and I’ve got a complaint in to the company.

We were going to walk to the meeting point but I forgot we should have got pocket WiFi! I find it really interesting that, given how ‘high tech’ Japan is, the WiFi coverage is poor out and about. I got mum in eSim but that’s not working and we’ve tried to text my Dad but that’s not working for us either!

I would say we’ll get my Dad on a smartphone with WhatsApp soon, but we won’t. He only started texting a few years ago.

So as the WiFi wasn’t reliable, we got ourselves on a public bus (number 51 if you want to know. Rode 11 stops and got off just outside the Disney store! Having been to that exact store back in 2020, I knew exactly where we had to go to get to the meeting place, go me.

Our way back.to our hotel after the tour was walkable but again, spotty wifi isn’t ideal but we made it back relatively easily once we’d worked it out. I’m sure you want to know how and we’ll, it went like this:

“Wee crossing, big crossing pass the 711 and all the way down then right”

We nailed it.

We have another tour tomorrow, this one I’m pretty sure is just us, exploring different things in Tokyo with a local!