We have been worldschooling for almost five years now. The biggest lesson we learned is that community is everything. We also learned that from the centenarians in Okinawa. Many of the most memorable times on our travels have been with other worldschooling families.
Our friends, the Carlsons created Worldschool Pop-Up to help traveling families find that community. https://www.worldschoolpopuphub.com/ The Carlsons coordinate week-long pop-ups all over the world that are hosted by traveling families. The week’s events include low and no-cost activities. Families can participate as much or as little as they want. The pop-up in Osaka is the first week-long pop-up for us. We met and hung out with several families during the week. We met at parks, museums, and board game cafes and sang karaoke. It is interesting to hear other family’s stories. It is also a great opportunity to get travel tips.
We had a great night viewing the teamLab exhibit at the Nagai Botanical Gardens in Osaka. teamLab is an international art collective that explores nature and technology and how they interconnect. The exhibit at the Botanical Gardens is a permanent interactive exhibit.
A great way to get to know a city is to take a walking tour. A large group of us spent two and half hours on an informative tour around Osaka.
We spent six hours at an entertainment center called Round 1. The kids went roller skating, go-karting, and played unlimited arcade games. There was a batting cage, archery, darts, tennis, badminton, bocce ball, a mechanical bull, and more. The venue is open 24 hours, so we did not close the place down, but we did stay until almost midnight.
Our trip to Nara with the other worldschooling families was fun. Nara is home to three World Heritage sites: Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara, Buddhist Monuments in the Horyuji Area, and Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range. We fed the deer (as did all the other hundreds of people walking around). We saw the world’s largest bronze statue of the Buddha at Todaiji temple.
We ventured out to La La Port Expocity and the park. Lucas and Henry did a ropes course called The Beast with their friends. Henry even walked out on the plank to ring the bell! The park also had tulips and cherry blossoms. After the park, we went as a group to La La Port Expocity mall for food, and Henry and I got new shoes.
Our last day of the pop-up was a trip to the Cup of Noodles Museum. It is a small museum where you can create a cup of noodles. We drew on the packaging and picked out the ingredients. None of it is vegan, so I let Michael choose ingredients. Henry said his cup of noodles was delicious.
In the afternoon, we took a lovely hike to Minoh Falls. It is a scenic 2km hike along a river. The weather was perfect, overcast, and not too hot. After hiking to the falls, we said goodbye to the families we met. Henry and Michael got charcoal vanilla ice cream on the way home. It was a big hit.
It is not just worldschoolers that we meet on our travels. We attended a barbeque with a group of pickleballers at the park at Osaka Castle. Our hosts grilled out meat and veggies, and we sat under the cherry blossoms. It was a wonderful end to our time in Osaka.
It was a fun week but also exhausting. It takes about an hour by train to go anywhere in Osaka. We were all happy to explore Osaka with new friends.
