Watching the dawn in Osaka, as jet lag is still a thing for me. Or, given it’s overcast and hazy, watching the sky slowly shift to a lighter shade of grey.

But for Osaka Castle there to the left of center, I could’ve taken that picture at any number of big cities. I like that.

Subways – same thing. Yesterday we headed to the Asakusa district of Tokyo to see the Sensoji Temple and the surrounding areas – the image a lot of people get when they think “Tokyo”. Heading down one set of stairs I had a brief flashback to our 2010 trip to The UK. If you changed the Japanese text on the ads lining the walls to English, it could easily have been a tunnel in the Underground.

Narita Airport, too. Airports seem to have a hard time modernizing, seeing as shutting down a terminal or even a few gates for renovation would cause such a big disruption. And while my experience at NRT was fine, it had the same feel I’ve noticed at many airports – fresh paint and new furniture can’t completely mask the place’s original design.