Family travels from Japan, just for The Wiggles

HOW far would you go to give your kids an amazing experience?

For one family the answer was over 8100km after they travelled from Inagawa in Japan to Ballarat to experience Sunday’s Wiggles concert at Civic Hall.

Naoko Sato said she chose Ballarat because she wanted to share the city with her husband Yohei and two children, Ayabe, 6, and Natsuki, 4.

“I have been to Ballarat before and I know this town is very lovely,” Ms Sato said.

“One day I just checked the homepage of the Ballarat council and I saw that the Wiggles were coming. Then I just wanted to see them and show them to my children.”

The Sato’s didn’t just get to see The Wiggles perform live at Civic Hall, when the band found out about the family’s journey, they offered to meet with them.

“I was amazing, I was really surprised,” Ms Sato said. “One guy said, ‘are you from Japan?’ and I said yes. After that they asked us to wait and then he said, ‘we’ll show you The Wiggles because you came all the way from Japan.’

“Simon, Lachie and Emma were so friendly.”

Of course, Ayabe and Natsuki enjoyed meeting The Wiggles too. “They don’t know how special it is,” Ms Sato said.

The journey from Inagawa, a sister city of Ballarat, to Civic Hall was a long one.

One-way it’s two flights, one from their hometown to Tokyo, and then to Melbourne – about 12 hours flying time alone, after that there was a bus trip to Ballarat and a taxi ride to their accommodation.

As they are only in Australia for three nights, on Tuesday they turned around and made the same trip in reverse.

Despite all the travel, Ms Sato said it was worth it, not just for The Wiggles.

“The children really enjoyed the concert and also they enjoyed the Wildlife Park,” she said. “I think the people in Ballarat are very friendly and calm. I also love the town because of the scenery and the sounds from the birds, and it smells very beautiful.”