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And so, after Cambodia comes Japan. Well, its been 3 weeks only after my Cambodia trip, so this is probably my shortest travel hiatus yet. *sweatdrop* But anyway, this trip is going to be different, because this time, I'm traveling with my whole family, finally! Ugh, when was the last time we all traveled together anyway; like... 3-5 years ago, maybe?
At first, I really couldn't decide whether we should go to Tokyo or Osaka because both are great cities. But in the end, we decided to go to here in Osaka instead since there are alot more family-oriented attractions here rather than in busy Tokyo. And of course, I will visit Kyoto too, so expect an entry from Kyoto soon. 😉
It was a about a 3+ hour flight from HK to Kansai. Kansai Airport was such a quiet airport, and on our way to immigration, my mom met up with one of her friends at work. It was a good thing that she gave us some information regarding the transportation between the airport and Osaka, since duh, we never visited Japan before. The immigration at Kansai is probably one of the most unusual immigrations I've ever been.
One officer approached me & slipped a pink paper at my passport while he was talking in Japanese. I realized that it's actually a time waiver to see how fast the immigration is; cool, MNL should have one... that is, if they will take it seriously. Another thing is that not only do they require to capture the passenger's face, they also need the fingerprint of the index finger in each hand. So yeah... again, this was all new to me; that's why I'm bloggin' it.
We still had trouble figuring out either we should take the train or limousine bus, because either way, either route won't end exactly at our hotel. We decided to go with the limousine bus, since the bus' travel time is an hour, and if we were to take the train route, we have to transfer to different stations. I guess taking the bus was a good idea, even if it lasted an hour. We were dropped off at a hotel, and luckily, I saw a distinctive building in Google Earth which is just near our hotel. We weren't sure how to navigate on foot from the hotel to our hotel, so we asked
the concierge first before moving on. When we arrived at our hotel... IT WAS SCHEME TIME. We actually reserved two single rooms since the double rooms are out, but since there we were 3 adults and 1 child, we decided that there will be two of us in a room, and everytime we go in & out of the hotel, I'll pretend that I'm not with them. Ha! Good scheme right?! :D
My bro was already excited to go to our first stop since we still had time today. Our first stop? Pokemon Center Osaka! Me and Adi were jumping for joy, but deep inside, I really wanted to kneel on the ground and shout "IT'S THE PROMISE LAND!!", seriously. Yeah, I'm that gaga for Pokemon still. XD It's such a shame though that taking pictures/videos is not allowed inside, so I just did what the other fanatics did: DISOBEY THE FREAKING RULES! Ha! I was really excited, but unfortunately, visiting the Pokemon Center was quite a let-down. I quickly realized that the place was really small, and I didn't even find a Pikachu hat! What really let me down is my bro not finding a Shaymin stuffed toy,
which he really wanted to buy at the Pokemon Center. Honestly, seeing him sad & not finding what he really wanted made me a little emotional and hugged him. I know how it feels when you don't get something that you've been waiting for a long time, so um... yeah, sad moment. But anyway, he was still able to buy some cool stuffs, like a bag inspired by Ash's backpack. They seriously have some kick-ass Pokemon merchandise there, but I wasn't able to find anything for me, so nevermind. It was about 6 PM, and we ran into a mall on our way to Dotonbori. After the CR break, we saw some "Engrish" signs, which were really amusing. We also saw some weird looking people, but in Japan, they call 'em "harajukus". Now, on our way to Dotonbori by train is our biggest challenge yet.
We quickly realized that alot of people here don't really understand English at all, so making our way to the subway station was already hard. When we found a subway station around in Umeda, it didn't feel like a subway, but rather a mall under the ground. We kept following the path to the
Midosuji line from Umeda to Namba (Dotonbori's district), and we found the ticket counter. Problem solved... NOT! The counters are all in Japanese!! I really thought that was the dead end of our tour, but my mom tried different ways to work the machine. At first, the ticketing counter can be translated to English, but we didn't know how to choose our tickets from Umeda to Namba. We looked at a huge map above the ticket counters, and each station indicates a symbol, and numbers. We thought that the numbers might be the price of the tickets, and so we followed the steps in English carefully. Finally, we figured out that the numbers that appeared at the keypad were also the numbers on the map, so when we chose the ticket price, BAM! We got our tickets! I know everything sounds confusing, so I guess you'll just have to go to Osaka to work everything out huh? Anyway, that was a REAL sigh of relief, thank God.
While walking after getting out of Namba station, we began searching for Dotonbori district, when we saw a Yoshinoya branch just across the street. We then saw a sign which says "Dotonbori",
so we thought that was the district with the Glico Man and the giant crab. Wrong! That area was strangely quiet, and from what I know, the area I'm expecting is really busy. Turns out that the district was on the other side of the street; the side where we got out from Namba station! Good thing my bro saw the giant crab, but bad thing my bro was already hungry, he wanted to eat at the McDonalds we passed by. Poor thing; we all know he got tired, so he deserved to rest. We didn't eat there though, since my mom & dad both wanted to eat at an authentic Japanese restaurant. After my bro ate, we saw a resto in Dotonbori that we wanted to try. Again, we were face-to-face with a Japanese machine, but this time, it takes orders. 😊) After a help from the waitress, we got our orders, and I sat in the bar where we can see our food cooked by the chefs. Everytime a customer leaves or enters, the chefs always shout "Arigato!"... and some other Japanese words. I ordered a beef bowl, and I saw how it was made & it was
then given to me. Now that's what a Japanese resto should be! That was real enlightening experience of what Japan has to offer in terms of cuisine. After eating, we took a few photos around Dotonbori & went back to our hotel. We knew our hotel was on the exit of Nakatsu station, but we realized that there were only 2 exits, and neither ended near our hotel. We didn't doubt that we got off at the wrong station, since the map was correct, but luckily, a lady told us that the hotel is just a few steps away from the hotel. When walking, we saw other exist that WE THINK we didn't saw at the station. Oh well, I guess we weren't looking at the right direction.
First day in Japan, and it was already challenging. We didn't meet any foreign people at all; all we met are Japanese, and harajukus. We didn't like how we got culture-shocked by the signs & people, but we're glad we were able to cope with the language barrier issue & still made our way very neatly. Tomorrow, we'll continue exploring Osaka, but for now, I'm gonna watch those silly Japanese game
shows, so g'night! :D
- Joko
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