Kyoto Day 4.

Homeward bound!  Apartment 🚶Kyoto Station 🚅 Osaka Airport 🛫 Naha Airport 🚗 Home 🙌🏼.

I’m still processing how I feel about travel with kids.  I read once that one does not “vacation” with children.  One “takes a trip.”  I wholeheartedly agree.  That is not to say it’s not worth it or enjoyable, but I wouldn’t call it relaxing.  I am glad we went, and I think it was an enriching experience.  There was valuable time spent together without errands to run or emails to check or chores to do, and we were super active, probably walking 4-5 miles every day.  And we saw a lot of cool places.  But travel is expensive, and Max might not remember any of it.  Hazel certainly won’t.  So was it worth it for Ben and me?  I think so.  You don’t know what you’ll learn until you go.  I was exhausted and happy to be home by the end, and Max had some pretty rough moments.  Overall though, I think travel provides expensive (both in dollars, er, yen, and energy and patience) but valuable lessons not learned other ways.  Max easily and quickly made friends with kids he saw all over the place, despite only sharing a few words they could understand.  We gained SO MUCH RESPECT for the immigrants and tourists in America.  International travel can be intimidating when you don’t know much of the language, but Japan was so accommodating.  

Will we do it again?  Maybe.  Probably.  We’ll see?  For now, we are back to enjoying our little island home.  Maybe that’s the best part of travel.  Okinawa never felt so much like home until we left for a while and came back.  ❤️