Kansai Day 1 (20/10/07): SIN --> Osaka

The start of the holiday! the flight there was quite pretty smooth and cozy cuz it wasn't a full flight (in fact i think it was a half empty flight) so i din have to queue very long for the washroom each time.

the limousine bus was cheap and easy to find and the tics were easy to buy too from the self automated machine. we caught the bus at bus stop 11 which goes to Namba OCAT for 880yen, 48 min. it's known fact that Japanese buses and trains as well are very punctual, so at 4.25 sharp it departed. it's indeed true that it's really much easier if u know their language or if not one of ur companions should know, because i realize that most of the pple there either cannot speak a word of English or are quite weak in it and it's impossible for them to understand us or for us to understand them. even the pple at the info counter of OCAT (they are suppose to give information, mind u) dun seem to be very helpful in giving english instructions. it's a good thing JY is quite good at japanese that we managed to get some instructions abt which direction to start walking from. but they got very funny concept of time, they actually told her our hotel is 2-3 min walk away which we know for a fact is not. there must have been a miscommunication somewhere...

anyway we chose to walk there, lugging our luggage with us. we could have taken the subway to Yotsubashi station from which our hotel was 1 min away from exit 4, but Yotsubashi was juz one stop away from Namba, so we decided to walk, and take in the sights at the same time. there were two giggly jap girls we wanted to ask directions from, but b4 we even approached them, they already avoided us. did we look like ghosts??

After walking for abt 20 min or so, we finally reached the hotel Toyoko Inn Shinsaibashi-Nishi. we checked into our single room after paying double room charges, but they issued us an extra set of everything - the pillows, toiletries, towels. i suppose we were already lucky cuz they could have made us get another single room. anyway the bed was actually big enough for two girls but still we were glad that we will be moving to a double room tmr.

this evening we explored Shinsaibashi and Dotombori. i felt that shinsaibashi-suji was colourful but not spectacular. the same thing could be said of dotombori. the japanese were certainly into cute things because here and there we could see cute characters such as bears, crabs on display at shops' entrance and they are really huge. some of them are the logo of the shop, those that display crab are selling crab, that's why. disappointly the shoping centres and some of the shops close quite early, whcih was really not what we expected. daimaru closes at 8 pm. that's even earlier than singapore!

some thoughts on the first day: it's good to be able to speak the language. but if u can't it's not impossible to travel f n e. u juz have to be very good at reading maps, very good at making correct guesses and first and foremost u must really do ur homework well before hand. then the rest, leave it up to luck...