Nintendo Osaka at Grand Front Osaka is Japan's first full-scale Nintendo flagship store. The entrance opens onto a floor of characters rendered at human height: a Piranha Plant taller than both boys, a Mario universe in three dimensions that refuses to be modest. We had reserved timed-entry slots a month in advance. Worth every click.

Looking down at Osaka from the upper floors of the DoubleTree by Hilton, Tenmabashi, with Japan's second city spread out in every direction, the Okawa river cutting a long arc through it. From up here the city reveals its real scale: not a collection of named neighborhoods but an unbroken field of buildings and bridges that simply continues to the horizon.

Osaka Castle was raised by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1583 as a monument to reunification, burned and rebuilt after the Siege of Osaka in 1615, and stands today in a 1931 concrete reconstruction with a museum inside the keep. Hideyoshi unified the country, won every battle of his lifetime, and then died. The castle fell seventeen years later, after a final six-month siege campaign. The boys found this outcome unsatisfying.

The tenshu, the main keep of Osaka Castle, rises five tiers above a base of massive ishigaki granite stones, its white plaster walls finished with gold-leaf tiger and phoenix ornaments on a black ground. At 58 metres it was the tallest structure in Japan when it was built. Standing at its base and looking up, that claim is easy to believe.

A Detective Conan × Osaka Castle special exhibition: Gosho Aoyama's long-running mystery series re-dressed in Edo-period costume against a painted backdrop of the castle. For a family passing through, it was a door opened slightly, a glimpse into the manga universe that the boys spent the rest of the trip trying to push further open. The souvenir shop was not a help.

IÑAKI is a Spanish restaurant at the top of an Osaka building, intimate and precise, with a tasting menu delivered in the Japanese style: each course alone, with full attention. Aimable had come with his daughter to join us for the weekend; we ordered by pointing, celebrated the occasion properly, and stayed longer than planned.

IÑAKI, a Spanish restaurant five minutes from Osaka Castle, with a view of the city below and a tasting menu arriving in courses nobody had ordered by name. Aimable and his daughter Lina had come from Paris; the table ended up feeling like a family occasion that the restaurant seemed to understand without being told. Custom bread, appetizer after appetizer, paella, the city outside the window. We were the only foreigners in the room. The staff worked around us with complete grace.

Legoland Discovery Center Osaka proved exactly what a wet afternoon called for. The rain arrived after lunch and refused to leave; inside, it was all primary colors, instruction sheets, and the particular concentration that descends on children who have been given unlimited bricks. We did not rush.

Universal Studios Japan takes its own world-building seriously. Every zone has its own architecture, its own sound design, its own smell at the gate. Every queue is part of the attraction. We rode everything the Express Pass allowed, in whatever order the boys successfully negotiated, starting before nine and finishing after four. Space Fantasy: The Ride was not close.

Nintendo World at USJ: the Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge attraction, where an AR headset overlays digital enemies and power-ups onto a full-scale physical set of Bowser's castle. The queue winds through the castle itself. The boys wore their Mario and Luigi hats from the moment the park opened. They collected stars. The adults fell significantly behind.

Late afternoon at USJ, still in their Mario and Luigi hats, the family encountered a Minion character mascot near the Despicable Me attraction. The younger boy locked eyes and did not look away. The Minion posed with complete professionalism. It was the last photograph of the day and somehow the best one.

The Karamon, the ceremonial gate of Nijō Castle, is clad in gold leaf and carved with phoenixes, tigers, and peonies on every surface, a statement about Tokugawa power that required no translation. Visiting daimyo from across Japan passed through it on their way to an audience with the shogun, already diminished before they arrived. Inside the Ninomaru Palace, the receiving rooms were arranged so that the shogun sat elevated and the daimyo sat below; even the ceiling heights communicated rank. None of this was accidental. We had not understood any of it before we arrived and understood all of it by the time we left.

Nijō Castle, built in 1603 as the Kyoto residence of Tokugawa Ieyasu, where shoguns received the daimyō and, on occasion, the emperor. The uguisu-bari corridors of the Ninomaru Palace chirp at every footfall, an architectural alarm against intruders. The garden beyond sits in complete silence. The children asked countless questions about the squeaking floors. I tried to imagine being the shogun, listening.

The Shirakawa is a slender canal running through the eastern edge of Gion, stone-banked, lined with old machiya townhouses that back right to the water's edge, with weeping willows that trail into the current. In the afternoon, when the tour groups are elsewhere, the canal path goes nearly quiet. It looks, from certain angles, exactly like the woodblock prints.

Gion, Kyoto's most preserved district, where the stone-flagged lanes narrow until two people must negotiate the passing and the wooden machiya townhouses haven't changed in two centuries. The ochaya teahouses still operate by introduction only; the paper lanterns are the same shade of orange they always were. We walked it in the afternoon, the boys a few steps ahead, and didn't say much.

The sacred sika deer of Nara Park are untethered, unhurried, and perfectly calibrated to the tourist experience after more than a thousand years of proximity. They have been trained over generations to bow in exchange for senbei crackers; they have also learned to nudge, headbutt, and shadow visitors with quiet insistence. The boys found every part of this excellent.

Tōdai-ji and Nara Park: the eighth-century temple that anchors Japan's first permanent capital. The Nandaimon great gate is flanked by eight-metre Niō guardians; beyond it, the Daibutsuden houses the 15-metre Vairocana Buddha, the largest bronze statue in Japan. Approximately 1,200 sacred sika deer roam the park as designated national treasures. They are unhurried, untethered, and perfectly aware of what you are carrying.

Inside the Daibutsuden, the world's largest wooden structure, one of the hall's columns contains a rectangular opening at its base, dimensioned to match the nostril of the 15-metre Vairocana Buddha. The tradition holds that passing through it brings good fortune in the next life. Small children manage it without difficulty. Adults have been known to require assistance. The queue was mostly children.

NOEL Cozy Home is a restaurant in a private house in Nara, a few tables arranged in what is clearly someone's dining room, the family's objects still on the shelves. The braided chicken is the reason to come: layered flavors, a complexity that nothing in Montreal approaches, a dish that made the room feel like an event. That evening in Kyoto, at a counter ramen bar called Ramen Mentaiken, the same thing happened again with a bowl of broth. Both were tiny, both were exceptional. The smaller the restaurant, the better the food: a working theory, confirmed twice in one day.

Fushimi Inari Taisha and its senbon torii: thousands of vermilion gates winding up the mountain, each one donated, the donor's name carved on the far side. The boys tried to read the columns of kanji the whole way up. The gates go on for four kilometres of mountain path; most visitors turn back at the first plateau, which is about right.

A museum of samurai armour and weapons, full sets displayed at human height, dramatically lit against dark backdrops, the gold lacework precise and unexpected. The boys held their hands behind their backs without being asked. Something about the armour demanded it. The placard noted the set was made for a specific person, for a specific campaign. That detail stayed with us longer than anything else.

The Kyoto Ninja & Samurai Museum's second half belongs to the shinobi, the covert agents of feudal Japan. The displays cover concealment, communication, and movement through restricted spaces, with throwing stars behind glass and a reconstruction of a ninja's hidden quarters. The costumed guides demonstrate techniques and invite participation. Everyone participated.

A katana takes 1 year for a craftsman to make, rolling it over and over, with unique weaves. One false movement, and the katana breaks. Once done, the katana has its own spirit. Never unsheated, only to shed blood

The Nozomi shinkansen covers the 513 kilometres between Kyoto and Tokyo in roughly two hours and fifteen minutes. At cruising speed the countryside moves in layers, near things a blur, far things a slow pan, the geometry of rice paddies and towns and then nothing but cloud. The boys pressed against the window for the whole journey. Fuji did not appear. The speed was enough.

Sensō-ji in Asakusa is Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in 628 AD, and the city's most visited site. The Kaminarimon Thunder Gate opens onto the Nakamise-dōri shopping street; beyond it, the main hall where visitors draw omikuji fortune slips each day. A bad fortune tied to the rack is a bad fortune left behind. The boys drew mixed results. We left them all there, in the rain.

Omikuji at Sensō-ji: visitors shake a hexagonal wooden cylinder until a numbered bamboo stick emerges, then match the number to one of one hundred wooden drawers, each containing a fortune slip. Dai-kichi is great blessing. Dai-kyo is great curse. A bad result tied to the wire rack is a bad result left behind, its burden transferred to the temple. The temple, having stood since 628, can manage it.

The Fukagawa Edo Museum reconstructs a section of the Fukagawa waterfront district as it existed around 1840, at 1:1 scale indoors. Tenement houses, a rice merchant, a boatman's lodge with its low wooden ceiling and the tools of the river trade hung on the wall. In the Edo hierarchy, merchants ranked fourth in the Confucian order below samurai, farmer, and artisan, on the theory that they produced nothing themselves. The museums do not dwell on the irony that most of them grew rich anyway.

Kiyosumi Garden is a Meiji-era strolling garden in Koto Ward, built around a large central pond. The stepping stones are enormous rocks transported by boat from across Japan. Paths trace the water slowly, with nothing competing for attention. Typhoon or not, the garden stayed calm. A few people in kimonos moved between the trees, unbothered. Foreigners stood quietly at the edge of the pond and took photos.

Tokyo Skytree at 634 metres is the tallest structure in Japan and the world's second tallest tower. The observation deck sits at 450 metres on a clear day looking out across the Kanto plain. This was not a clear day: typhoon Shanshan had grounded the view in grey, and a seismic event during the visit brought the lifts to a halt at floor 31 per safety protocol. The tower sways by design. The earthquake was additional. The boys thought this was fine.

Shibuya is where Japanese commercial culture compresses itself into the smallest possible space across the largest possible number of floors. The Scramble Crossing outside is the famous image; the buildings around it are the real phenomenon, stacked with specialist retail arranged by subject matter, each floor its own world. Montbell occupies the outdoor equipment floors. The gaming and anime floors above it form what might be described as a very efficient way to spend the afternoon. Godzilla stands near the entrance to one of the larger complexes, life-size, and nobody seems to think this requires an explanation.