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Having spent the entire night at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia I was dead tired when I reached the Kansai International Airport, Japan at 345pm. I have had no sleep at all the previous night and slept only bits and bobs on the plane. First job of the day was getting a Japanese SIM card. At the airport there are two counters at the arrival, one place renting phones outright and the other renting SIM cards. Renting SIM cards which for me seems a little unusual; renting a whole phone costs like Yen 500 per day plus call / text and data charges. The other place called Softbank charges about Yen 150 per day and but they only provide you with a SIM card. The two ladies at the Softbank counter were really helpful and spoke good English. Lots of paper work to sign I was wondering if I was signing my life away. They are quite insistent on turning your Cellular Data Off because it’s quite expensive. So for your own protection they advise you to switch it off.
Afterwards I made my way to the railway station to get to Osaka. I have bought
Free Transport
This van takes you from under the Tsūtenkaku in the Shin Sekai area to Umedaa Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass) for 3 weeks from Sri Lanka. In order to get a JR Pass, you got to purchase it outside Japan. What you buy is an exchange voucher which the Japanese Rail offices convert once you get to Japan. The 3 week pass cost Yen 57,700 (Approx LKR 93,000). Since I was going to be in Japan for 23 days it didn’t make sense for me to convert the pass on the day of my arrival because, the most I would use it will be to go from the airport to Osaka.
There are two lines that connect the airport to Osaka, the JR Line and the Nankai Line. Individual ticket price from the airport to Osaka for the JR line is Yen 1160 and the Nankai line is Yen 890 without a rapid surcharge. The decision was obvious and I went on the Nankai line.
On the train my mum called to see if everything was alright and I had a good chat with her and when I finished the call a Japanese gentleman politely told me that Japanese people do not use mobile phones on the train. Only later I saw
a sign saying “Please turn your mobile to silent and refrain from talking on the phone”; oops I have made my first booboo in Japan. It didn’t occur to me that people were extremely silent and they all had their heads down glued to the mobile texting and playing games. Sometimes even couples don’t speak to each other they are constantly on the phone with their head down.
My accommodation in Osaka was being provided by a Couch surfer (
www.couchsurfing.org). The deal was I was meant to work for 3 hours in their bar/restaurant called Bar NocoSarejima in exchange for free accommodation at their hostel. The work I had to do was to wash dishes and talk to their clients. The couch surfers themselves were in Australia on holiday but they had given me all the details to find their place near the Tsūtenkaku tower in the Shin Sekai district.
I met Atsushi around 730pm at the bar and he showed me around and told me what I had to do. In spite of me being all tired I decided to work 3 hours because if I didn’t the following day I would have had to work 6
hours in order to make up for tonight’s accommodation.
The bar was a nice and cosy place with about 15 fish tanks. I don’t know if Japanese consider fish to be good luck or what but so many fish tanks. We finished at the bar around 1130pm since there weren’t many customers and headed towards the hostel.
My accommodation Yoccola Islands Share House was only a 15 minute walk from the bar. I had a big room for myself and it was all Tatami flooring and had to sleep on the floor. The room’s entrance is a Japanese style sliding door. When Atsushi takes a drink he stays at the hostel and there wasn’t anyone else; had the whole place to myself. This place is also available on
www.airbnb.com and they rent a room usually at Yen 2,500/= per night. If I didn’t work at the bar I would have had to pay a special price as I am a couch surfer of Yen 2,000/= per night which is very cheap considering accommodation prices in Osaka or for that matter Japan.
They have wifi, share fridge, cooker, laptops all the facilities you need to self cater and
communicate. I just dumped my stuff, had a shower and fell asleep.
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