Upon arriving to the airport around 7am this morning... tragedy struck.
Due to a mixup, Ee Laine had booked our flight to Osaka on the previous day and we had missed our flight by 24 hours to the dot.The lady at the Jetstar counter was pretty uber helpful (we were advised that to purchase another set of tickets would cost us about $1200 each one way which was ridiculous). She flagged down her manager and they managed to squeeze us into a flight today with no extra charge.
Ee and I couldn't thank them enough for sorting us out with this outcome and we are truly grateful for Jetstar to have offered the solution that they did.
So we checked in our baggage and made our way into the terminal... We thought that we would visit the newsagency inside the departure lounge rather than the one on the outside... But there was a problem... There was NOTHING on the "other side" apart from the duty free store (which only had alcohol and purfume), a coffee kiosk and the TRS counter.
The below pic is the International departure terminal... I could swear I have more seats around my dinner table at home...
The flight to Osaka from Gold Coast took about 8 1/2 hours and was painfully slow... However surprisingly Jetstar economy had much more room than some of the other carriers I've flown (including Qantas) and the video on demand was a neat entertainment feature.
The way the children onboard the flight behaved... yet another reason I'm reluctant to bring any kids of my own into this world.
After we arrived to Osaka, we picked this piece of cardboard up... It's basically the most expensive piece of cardboard I've ever purchased (it's a rail pass for 1 week of travel in Japan - totalling in excess of $400 smackers per person)
The train we were on was surprisingly empty. The trains are on time (something I'm not quite used to thanks to Cityrail) - In fact, when I went to the Japan Rail help desk to try and book a bullet train for 11:30 tomorrow morning, she gave me a choice of 11:28am or 11:34am (and yes, they are separate trains). How's that for service? One other thing I noted, whereas Sydney has that man with the booming voice who does the announcement of which stations are the next stop (or the lady voice that has popped up over the past few years)... The train I sat on tonight had a robotic Japanese accent... I'd imagine that would be exactly what Stephen Hawking would sound like if he spoke Japanese.
After an extra hour of transit, we finally arrived to our hotel... Yet another sign of Japanese attention to detail: Stating the height clearance of vehicles entering a car park is just not enough... the full dimensions MUST be stated so everyone's on the same page:
Here's our accomodation... Toyoko Inn at Osaka - They are a chain of budget hotels with everything you need for about 80,000 yen a night twin share. When I say everything I mean everything... They even supply you with shampoo/bath gel, toothpaste, toothbrushes and the list goes on and on. That term "don't forget your toothbrush" doesn't really apply to holiday makers who decide to stay with this chain.
It was about 10pm by the time we checked into the hotel this evening and we were still yet to have dinner so we walked around the corner to see what was open... And we stumbled upon this little gem. I've heard some great things about this burger chain called Mos Burger from some online buddies and I certainly wasn't disappointed. This burger puts the places I visited on my hamburger tour in USA a few years ago to shame!
Ee's pointing at the Mos Burger Motto "Hamburger is my life" - Engrish is awesome!
Both Ee Laine and I were completely stuffed for about $16aud...
A++++ Burger joint... will eat from there again!
PS. Whilst typing tonight's blog, I had the tv on to see what kind of whacky shows are on this time of evening... There's a show on right now where they rate cleavage of women and use various things to poke their boobs. Captivating stuff...
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