The Deer in the Headlights: Dad's Big Japan Adventure

Walter and Sophie, this is the mostly true story of what happened when your dad went to Japan for eleven days with Jess, one camera and absolutely no idea what he was doing.

Almost everything in this story happened. The dialogue, sound effects, imaginary animal opinions and occasional dramatic exaggeration may or may not have occurred exactly like that. Japan's history, places and customs are real. Dad's ability to follow directions remains under investigation.

The deer, the toilets and the earthquake are all completely real.

Each chapter has the same parts, so you always know what is coming:

Every good adventure story has a brave explorer. This one has me instead.

There are two sorts of travellers. One sort can walk straight past a drain cover. The other sort stops, crouches down and photographs it from six different angles. I am the second sort!

I had never been overseas before. Well, I once went on a school trip to Tonga for a week, back in Year 8. So let's say I had never been overseas without my school principal joining me. Japan was going to be my first proper trip to another country, and I was about as ready as Minnie is for a bath after going to the creek and walking in stinky mud.

Luckily, I was not going alone.

While Jess moved through Japan like a sleek, organised ninja, I moved through Japan like an excited golden retriever who had just been let off the lead in a sausage factory. If something was shiny, mechanical, down a dark alley, bolted to the ground or moving, I had to stop and take forty-seven photos of it.

Before we left, you two gave me jobs. Walter wanted some Japanese Pokémon cards, ideally a Venusaur. Sophie wanted a traditional Japanese doll and some photos of the bowing deer. These were serious missions.

If a Pokémon appeared in a shop window, I would investigate. If Jess or I spotted a doll, I would investigate. If I spotted a little mechanical gadget that looked as though it might have a motor in it, I would also investigate, even though nobody had asked me to.

So picture it. Eleven days. Five cities: Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya and Tokyo. One very organised woman. One man who gets distracted by shiny things. One camera.

Over those eleven days I forged a real Japanese knife, got headbutted by sacred deer in typhoon rain, raced a bullet train on foot, and survived an earthquake while sitting on the toilet. I was a deer in headlights the entire trip, and Jess was the person behind the steering wheel wondering what on earth she had signed up for.

The best thing about Japan, I would discover, was that an ordinary day could contain a centuries-old temple, a singing robot, a masterpiece of craftsmanship, a train station and a toilet that plays music.

The most dangerous thing about Japan, I would discover, was that every one of those things required me to stop and have a closer look.

Far more impressive was the McDonald's, where burgers zoomed down from the kitchen on a conveyor belt, right near a giant robot face bolted to the floor. Jess probably should have taken my excitement as a warning.

The flight Our Jetstar flight left (mostly) on time. First miracle of the holiday. I had the window seat and spent nine hours like Buddy with his head out the car window, listening to music and playing random word games with Jess.

Kansai Airport When we landed in Osaka, the air felt like warm soup. Japan is in the Northern Hemisphere, so its seasons run opposite to ours: our spring is their autumn. Even so, it was hot and sticky. This was my first geography lesson, delivered by a wall of warm air.

The reason we thought that was that the system sent the mum and dad in front of us to Gate A on the far right, and wanted to send their three-year-old to Gate C at the other end of the building. I imagined the airport computer announcing: "ADULTS TO THE RIGHT. SMALL CHILD TO THE LEFT. AUSTRALIAN DAD, PLEASE STOP ASKING QUESTIONS."

The family sensibly ignored the robot overlords and stayed together. Good call.

Osaka Drift Outside, Jess and I climbed into the back of a taxi. Our driver clearly believed he was starring in a car-racing movie. The speed limit was 60 to 80 kilometres an hour the whole way. He did 120. For more than an hour. He wove past everything on the road while the glowing towers of Osaka blurred past our windows and Jess and I held on to our seats.

The konbini By the time we reached the hotel it was late, so dinner came from the Lawson around the corner.

This was one of the few times I was the expert.

The final boss Then came the final boss of Day 1: the hotel toilet.

Heat. Spray. Wiggle mode. Wide mode. Massage. One played music. One made a noise like a small jet engine starting up. One was a turbo-blaster that I am fairly sure was designed to strip paint off a fence.

Even finding the flush is a puzzle. More than once on this trip I pressed the power button by mistake and shut the whole toilet computer down instead. At least I never hit the ejector seat.

It was such an unusual sensation that I laughed so hard I nearly fell off. And I now believe I know the secret of why Japanese people are so cheerful.

This turns out to be important later.

The train Then came my first Japanese train.

The train arrived at exactly the second the sign said it would.

My stomach, however, did not run to a timetable.

The Emergency One hour after leaving the hotel, standing beneath Tsutenkaku Tower in a neighbourhood called Shinsekai, my breakfast decided it wanted to leave. Urgently.

I was prepared. For weeks before the trip I had practised saying "Toire wa doko desu ka?" ("Where is the toilet?"). Whenever I tried it on a real Japanese person, they stared at me in polite confusion. Luckily, I also had a toilet-finder app and emergency tissues. The app pointed around the corner to a public toilet we had just walked past.

It was not a heated, singing spaceship toilet.

(Fun fact: Many Western saws cut when you push them, which can bend the blade, so the metal has to be thick. Japanese saws cut when you pull, so the blade can be super thin and make laser-neat cuts.)

Then I photographed neon signs, lanterns, wires and alleyways until my camera begged for mercy.

Mission One: Complete on day two! (Of course, we still checked out every single Pokémon card shop we passed for the rest of the trip, just to see what else was out there. That is how I later tracked down the other cards and the ultimate bonus treasure: an original 1996 Japanese "Pocket Monsters" Bulbasaur card in mint condition!)

Beaten by a Robot Later, in Edion, a ten-storey technology store with floor after floor of gadgets, I wandered around in awe of the robots. Jess sat down to play an ancient board game called Go against a robot arm.

Japan had delivered its second day: tools, trains, robots, Pokémon and a toilet I would prefer never to meet again.

My one regret: I had already eaten the hotel breakfast and could not fit any in. (No toilet emergencies today, in case you were wondering. I know you were.)

TEA!! Next we went to a chef's supermarket. Then Jess found the tea aisle.

Paying at the register, however, revealed The Trouble With Zeros.

Dangerous information.

The Cheesecake In Umeda, Jess's Pastry Radar locked on to Rikuro's, a famous bakery that sells a soufflé cheesecake so soft and fluffy that it wobbles like jelly. They ring a bell every time a fresh batch comes out of the oven.

Jess announced she could eat an entire family-size one by herself. I bought the apple pie as a backup.

So we wandered the streets of Umeda carrying a wobbling cheesecake and a warm pie like two people carrying a sleeping baby, until we found somewhere comfortable we were allowed to sit... we think.

The tree There was a story projected onto the castle that we watched, then the castle stayed lit up. The castle was spectacular, glowing gold and white against the night sky.

So if you ever watch a video of Osaka Castle at night and see a confused dad from Orange wander into the background and stare deeply at a completely empty tree, that is your father. Hello.

There were giant glowing eggs you could rock and spin. There were lights that followed your footsteps.

Jess wore a long, flowing skirt that caught the rainbow lights like a kaleidoscope, and she spun through the rooms like a turbo-charged ballerina in a music box. People thought she was filming for Instagram. Nope, she was just having fun.

The rope course The attendant explained the route to Jess very carefully for about two minutes. Jess finished the course in a world-record fifteen seconds, ran back to the start and asked to go again. She spent longer listening to the instructions than she spent on the actual course.

The birthday dinner Jess's birthday feast was in a 100-year-old townhouse, where an amazing assortment of dishes was slowly brought out and cooked right in front of us on a charcoal hearth built into the middle of our table. The main event was smoky, melt-in-your-mouth wagyu beef sukiyaki.

I said, "That green chilli-citrus sauce is delicious." (It is called yuzu kosho.)

The chef vanished into the kitchen. He came back and presented me with a brand-new bottle to take home.

Five minutes later, Jess said she liked the tea. She was given a bag of tea to take home too.

(Note to self: next time, compliment the chef's sports car.)

I checked my phone. I had dropped the pin in the wrong spot. About a kilometre from the right spot, actually. We asked the driver to carry on to the real gates, and he did, and I got a free tour of secret old Kyoto out of my mistake. Jess got another story to tell at dinner parties.

On a sunny day there are so many people that you shuffle through shoulder to shoulder. But it was pouring. The crowds stayed home. We walked through the glowing tunnels almost alone, rain dripping off the gates, and I got photos that you normally only see in books.

Kintsugi In the afternoon we went to Gion, the old entertainment district, for a craft lesson.

She rigged the odds, and I still loved every second.

My mission? To forge my very own Japanese steel knife with a master blacksmith.

My rule for safety in the shed at home is "do as I say, not as I do", so to be honest, for once the safety gear matched what I actually wear. (That is a joke. Mostly. Don't tell Mum!)

The master was a grizzled old blacksmith who spoke a little English. The assistants spoke none. The steel went into the fire until it glowed orange like a sunset, then onto the anvil, and I hammered it flat, and back into the fire, and hammered again.

Every time the master inspected my blade, he would turn it over, nod and rumble, "Mm. Very good."

The poor bloke at the anvil next to me got a grunt. Every single time. Just a grunt. He kept whispering, "Why does he like yours so much?!" I was feeling very proud.

Then the man down at the end of the row got a FIST BUMP from one of the assistants. We were both extremely jealous.

The grinder Then came the sharpening grinder, and this was so much fun! A tiny bump here. A little adjustment there. Just one more pass to get it perfect. Showers of sparks. I was having a blast.

Eventually one of the instructors wandered over, tapped me on the shoulder and gently explained that my knife was looking lovely, but I needed to stop now. It was getting thinner and thinner. If I kept going, there would not be any knife left.

As a loyal travel companion, I immediately sprang into action.

First, I took photos. Then a video. Then a few more photos, from a better angle. THEN I rescued her.

Jess was not impressed. The deer was delighted.

Jess escapes (and Sophie's Doll Quest heats up) Jess tapped out, very sensibly, and went shopping in the (dry) old town. While she was exploring, she came across an old timber shop selling all sorts of beautiful wooden crafts, scrolls, manuscripts and treasures. Inside, she discovered a huge collection of Japanese dolls, both commercial touristy ones and authentic, old traditional ones.

Sophie, this is where your doll quest got serious.

Jess started sending me photos of the dolls, asking if any of them were right for you, at the exact moment I was in the park fighting off a deer that was trying to eat my backpack. I texted Jess back with tips on what to look for to tell an authentic traditional doll from a touristy one, though my messages made very little sense because I was actively getting headbutted by an impatient teenage deer while typing.

(Binary is the counting system computers use, with only 1s and 0s. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. Ask Jess to explain the joke.)

Five hours in the rain Meanwhile, I wrapped the Canon in a plastic bag and spent five glorious hours marching through the pouring rain, having the time of my life.

The deer near the temples bow to you. You bow, they bow, you give them a cracker. You buy the crackers from little stalls, and the deer know EXACTLY what the stalls are. The moment you buy a packet, you have friends. Lots of friends. Friends with no manners.

The teenage deer are the worst. If you are slow with the cracker, they headbutt you. I collected several headbutts and loved every one. One deer decided my backpack looked tasty and tried to eat it. Another followed me for a full ten minutes making a noise like a squeaky door.

The buck Deep in the back forest, down a hidden path with nobody else around, I found him.

A big wild buck with a full crown of antlers, much more wary of people than the bowing deer back in the park. He was nervous. I wanted a photo. He wanted a significant amount of personal space.

So I did the only sensible thing. I sat down in the mud in the pouring rain and started frisbee-ing crackers at him. One by one. For about twenty minutes.

Two feasts Back in Kyoto, Jess had found a restaurant that served dinner at her perfect speed: tiny beautiful dishes of Kyoto vegetables arriving slowly over two and a half hours. She was in heaven.

Her dinner started while I was still up a mountain in the rain. It finished after I had caught the train back, had a hot shower, thawed out my frozen toes and eaten my own fancy feast: convenience-store sushi and a tiny bottle of Yakult.

We both had a great day.

Tuesday was Shinkansen day: our ride on the world-famous Japanese bullet train.

Today I learnt two things about bullet trains. They are very fast. And they are much, much longer than they look.

The race We got to the platform at Kyoto Station early so I could film a Shinkansen leaving. We were standing at the back end of the train. I figured the front could not be far. These trains are only three or four carriages long, surely? A casual jog would get me to the nose for the perfect shot of it pulling away.

Kids, a Shinkansen is sixteen carriages long. Four hundred metres! That's 16 lengths of the Orange indoor pool (25 metres per length)!

Most people probably just thought I was running late for the train. They had no idea I was racing it for a photo.

I reached the nose and hit record with about two seconds to spare.

Our own train was the next one, which was lucky, because I needed a sit-down.

On board The train pulls out smoothly, and then it accelerates. And accelerates. And KEEPS accelerating. Houses blur. Rice fields streak. Mountains slide past like a painting on wheels.

I wanted a video of another bullet train passing us in the other direction at full speed. Every time I saw one coming and pressed record, it had already gone. Blink and you miss it. Literally.

The Toyota museum, Nagoya We hopped off halfway, in Nagoya, to visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum. Did you know Toyota did not start out making cars? It started out making weaving machines.

Both of us were in heaven, because it is a WORKING museum. Every single machine runs. You start with someone spinning cotton by hand, then a wooden loom, then a clanking steam-powered loom, then a computer-controlled loom that weaves actual photographs into fabric.

Then you walk through a door and there are giant metal presses stamping out car parts, and robot arms welding a car body together right in front of you, sparks flying.

I would have ordered more food just to see it again.

Shibuya Crossing Afterwards we dived into the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. When the lights change, up to three thousand people cross at once from every direction, and somehow nobody bumps into anybody. People in character onesies drive past in real-life Mario Karts. Influencers sprint to the middle for their photo and sprint back before the lights change.

It is now permanently stuck playing inside my brain.

Shabu shabu Lunch was all-you-can-eat shabu shabu: a bubbling pot of broth on your table, and plates of thin meat and vegetables that you swish through the hot soup to cook. You get ninety minutes.

We spent eighty-five of them building an increasingly magnificent mushroom soup, adding more mushrooms, tasting, adding more. With five minutes to go we remembered the steak, the pork and the ice cream, and ate them all at once.

Delicious. Badly planned, but delicious.

Lost Shinjuku's underground shopping centres are so huge, and stacked on so many levels, that our phone maps went completely haywire.

Which is how Golden Retriever Dad and Bullet-Train Jess lost each other. Twice. In one afternoon.

Both of us were certain we were on the ground floor. The map on our phones disagreed with both of us and kept jumping around to prove it. Jess walks at the speed of light. I stop for shiny things. We found each other both times, and I think losing each other only twice in eleven days is a small miracle.

The onsen Our hotel, the Dormy Inn, had its own separate communal bathing areas for men and women.

They are hot spring baths called onsen, and that night I decided to be brave. Then I walked in and still could not work out the system.

After boiling myself like a dumpling, a free ice cream (or two) was the one part of the onsen ritual I understood instantly and completely.

Jess and I made it a nightly tradition to raid the freezer after a long day. Then a morning tradition. Every single day we were at the Dormy Inn, we ate free hotel ice cream for breakfast, no adults present. Combined with a frankly impressive number of meals from convenience stores, our eating habits were more like unsupervised kids in an ice cream shop... literally some days.

No regrets.

The midnight shake-up Seven minutes past midnight. I was on the toilet. (I know. I was not expecting this many toilet stories either.)

The walls started shaking. Properly shaking. The water in the bowl sloshed. My first thought was: what have I EATEN?

Then my phone buzzed. A message from Jess: "Did you feel that?"

I was not entirely sure how to apologise.

We asked an AI chatbot what it was all about. It basically shrugged and said, "Japan has over a thousand earthquakes a year. Welcome to Tokyo."

Nine days in, and Japanese toilets were still finding new ways to surprise me.

For our final full day, we hit fast-forward.

Ninjas We started at the Ninja Museum where I learnt that real ninjas were actually spies. (See the Fact File. It is a good one.)

A duffel bag with no lock.

So while Jess sensibly went to sleep, I caught a late train back into the city to the 24-hour Donki to buy a padlock. This was one-third necessity, one-third being far too wound up to sleep before our 3 am start, and one-third an excuse to hear "Don, Don, Don, Donki" one last time.

At least I am honest about the maths.

I bought the padlock. (And a few other things.) Then I walked back through Ginza, Tokyo's fanciest district, at midnight: empty streets, glowing shop windows, the whole city humming quietly to itself. I got back to the hotel at half past one in the morning.

There is something wonderful about wandering through Tokyo in the middle of the night.

There is something slightly less wonderful about doing it because you bought so many souvenirs that your clothes no longer qualify for secure storage.

After eleven days of me and my toilet stories, that felt like the universe having the last laugh.

Jess kept us moving, fed, organised and pointing in the right direction (except when I tried to help). She made sure I saw the busiest shopping street in every city. I photographed almost everything that was not moving, and most of the things that were.

I loved the ancient temples built by hand, the robots, the trains, the food, the beautiful messy neon alleys, and the way even the smallest everyday thing, a drain cover, a vending machine, a jingle on a truck, could feel like an adventure.

The only thing that could possibly make the next trip even better is bringing you three: Mummy, Sophie and Walter, along with me. Mostly because I really need someone to help carry the camera bag.

I went to Japan as a deer in headlights.

I came home as a BOWING deer in headlights, with a knife I made myself, a suitcase bursting with treasures for you two, a brain still singing the Donki song, and a camera full of photos that may take until our next holiday to sort through.

Would I do it all again? Absolutely.

Would Jess take me again? I will let you know once she has recovered.

Every Word of the Day in one place. Test each other.