Parcly Taxel: For over two centuries, in a period known as sakoku (鎖国), Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate locked down most of its ports in an effort to stabilise the hierarchy and remain independent of its neighbours. This was extremely successful and its effects linger on in a multitude of places, including those we visited across western Honshu.
 
After 150 years of openness, globalisation and tourism, it’s hard to tell which attractions, restaurants or services are oriented towards foreigners and which are not. It seemed that Ichiran in Osaka, with all its languages and showy interior, was cobbled together from stereotypes of ramen outlets, or that Fushimi-inari was clamouring to maintain its rankings with orange nobori (幟) and sponsored torii.
 
I didn’t want to have a false impression of Japan, which is why I put more emphasis on four well-maintained World Heritage Sites or parts thereof and other truly local activities or curiosities: onsen, the rail network, exclusive food, overhead transmission cables, deer and so on. That way I lived like a local; pleased with my experience, now I was going home.
 
Spindle: After eating the imagawayaki and what other breakfast food was left, we did an initial packing, then window-shopped in Grand Front Osaka, a new shopping centre near Osaka Station City. Its lower floors were saturated as always on a weekday morning, but the crowd thinned out above. Between the two main halves and an auxiliary plaza there was nothing of note we hadn’t tried yet, so for lunch we cantered a short distance to an underground restaurant serving beef cutlets.
 
Parcly: The souvenirs and local products we were bringing back occupied so much space that we needed another luggage to contain them. Once the apartment’s layout was restored, we went from Sakuranomiya to Kansai Airport on what started out as a simple Loop train whose back half later detached for Wakayama (和歌山). Two terminals in one run is definitely an ingenious thing, considering how many passengers go to each side.
 
Spindle: A chilly breeze permeated Parcly’s outstretched feathers as she preened them before flight, closing gaps and ironing out clumps. When we set off for Hong Kong, the photographer’s favourite blue hour was underway, night and day sharing the sky between them, the former punctured by stars emerging from the sun’s glare.
 
Turbulence swayed her from side to side on the way up, then faded away. Left to their own devices, higher air currents are smoother and more predictable like the crowd we found at Grand Front Osaka. Beyond the height ceiling of normal pegasi, Parcly could enjoy a small dinner in this amazing empty space – while flying at transsonic speeds? With our resilient friendship I surrounded her with a warm bubble of still air and she levitated the rest.
 
Parcly: I had a four-hour stopover in Hong Kong. Mistmane and Rarity prepared for my supper delightful beef noodles and a chocolate milkshake from their respective cultures, our shared connection to the same branch of the Tree of Harmony (generosity/beauty) adding flavour and context. Though the city never sleeps, the quiet zone erected around the airport made for a soothing, peaceful rest on soft grass.
 
There was still residual fatigue in my wings when I resumed my flight. For five minutes these stretches and strains creaked across all six limbs, then vanished altogether when I involuntarily entered fly-by-wire mode: like the laboratory and library that had helped me earn my cutie mark, my dreamscape morphed to mirror real life closer than my physical senses could. Manoeuvring around obstacles became pure intuition about changes in air pressure over my feathers, with minimal recourse to visuals.
 
Princess Luna: The reduced brain activity of my travelling genie helped me guide her to a soft landing on the drawbridge of Canterlot Castle, where I was waiting. “Here are your presents for Hearth’s Warming and more,” she rattled off.
 
“No, dearie. Look above at the magnificent sunrise.”