Japan Trip - Day 1

People have been bugging me to write about my Japan trip. Ok, so 3 people have been bugging me to write about my Japan trip. I think I had better start before I forget the details. I can tell you this though; I still have the Osaka vibe with me, seriously...5 days was not enough to experience everything.

Our flight to Kansai airport was at 815am, which meant we had to check in before 6am. Thanks to my brother for spending the night at our house to drive us to the airport at 5am. After checking in, we had breakfast at Oldtown cafe. RM5 for toast, seriously? Hmmm...

The flight was rather long and uneventful. We had ordered food on board but I was too restless to enjoy it. Finally, around 3pm, we touched down in Osaka.

After grabbing our luggage, we headed to the Information Counter to find out the best way to our hotel. The lady there suggested we take the bus into town, the take the subway to our hotel. She gave us directions to the bus terminal and also how to get to our hotel from the subway. We had to take the airport limousine bus to Namba then take the subway from there to our station, Hirobashi. Finding which bus to take was easy; there was a very kind pakcik that help us with our ticket purchases.

The pakcik at the ticket dispenser machine. Everything was written in Japanese, so it really helped having local people assisting. And trust me, all of them were so accommodating and friendly.

Once we had our tickets, we lined up to wait for the bus. It didn't take long for the bus to arrive; the best thing was that it came right on time. Like on the dot!! Super efficient!

All of the bus stops had names of their connecting stops with numbers so its pretty easy to find out which bus you should be taking. Once we had reached Namba, we had to take the subway to our station near the hotel.

En Rashid figuring out what to have for dinner, hehehe. This was while we were waiting for the subway to arrive. The stations were pretty easy to figure out once we had a map and had a few ridden the train a few times.

 Our station was Hirobashi, which was only 4 stops from Namba. It helped that they had the English version of the station names written on the walls.

This is the hotel we stayed at; Chisun Inn Umeda. This was actually our second choice after Dotonbori Hotel which was rather expensive but right smack in Dotonbori. I got a great deal for the rates from Expedia; about RM170 per night. Which meant more money to spend on food and shopping! Heehehe.

This is the view from the front door. Even from here you can see that the room is rather small. Entering the hallway, you have the washer to your left and shoe rack to your right. I had intended to use the washer as we both brought just enough clothes to last us until the last day but all the directions on how to use the damn machine was in Japanese. Calling the front desk wasn't much help since they only spoke basic English. Oh well...

This is the bathroom, small but had everything we needed. I can imagine that it would be a tight squeeze for anyone over 6 feet though. What I loved about the bathroom was the heated toilet seat. I mean, seriously!! It made going to do your business so much more pleasurable. Hahahaha...

The room also had its own kitchenette, complete with plates, mugs and glasses. There was even a small cooker, though we didn't cook anything while we were there. They also had a microwave in the room, plus a hairdryer but no clothes iron.

This was the bed. A bit of a squeeze for both of us but comfy enough. The pillows were a bit too hard for me.

I had booked a double room with tatami mat which turned out to be a good thing because only when we had pushed the table to one side, did we have space for prayers. We did have our breakfast at the table so we at least made some effort to eat like the Japanese. Hee. The TV only had Japanese channels which seemed to always be showing either talk shows or extremely funny Japanese game shows.

For Day 1, we didn't do much since we were rather tired out from the journey. We found a 7-11 and Circle K just across the main road from the hotel so we went and bought bread and 3in1 instant coffee for our dinner.

Day 2 coming soon.