北美生活
Live life to the fullest
正文
Day 1/2
Even though it is one leg shorter than flying back to China, the 14 hr flight (the second leg of the trip) from Detroit to Osaka was a torture nonetheless. The airline has been doing a great job selling their seats. Every seat on the plane was occupied, making the flight extra tortuous.
We arrived at Osaka's international airport around 6:00 pm. Found an ATM and got some money before we could do anything. It seems the Japanese live on cash. Credit cards are not accepted at many places. There are ATM machines everywhere, but most of them won't accept international ATM cards neither, except the ones at international airports, post offices, and 7-Eleven convenience stores. Good thing 7-Elevens are everywhere, and they are open 24/7. So getting cash wasn't hard during our trip.
Our hotel is in Namba, one of Osaka's two major city centers. I thought the best way to reach our hotel was to take the airport limousine bus that goes to Osaka City Air Terminal (OCAT). Thinking maybe they would deliver us right to the hotel, but the girl at the airport tourist information desk told us: no, they don't do deliver, and it is a further walk from OCAT to the hotel than from the Nankai Namba station. She said the best way to reach our hotel is to take the Nankai express train, which costs 890 Yen, and takes ~45 minutes. So we took her advice, and got on the train.
There were only a handful of people in the carriage we were in, two of them were an old Japanese couple in their 60s. Two stops later, most of the people got off, including the couple. Just when we were wondering what's going on, the husband came back, and asked us in English, "Where are you going?" We said "Namba". He said "you need to get off the train and exchange to a different train". We had no idea that we needed to exchange. So we hurried off the train and waited at the same platform with everyone else. It turned out, the train we were on was a local train, it would stop at every station, making it very slow to reach Namba. The train we were waiting for is the express train, it would only make a few stops before reaching the final destination - Namba, so we could get there in ~45 minutes. The couple figured that we were tourists, we had to be going to Namba than anywhere else, so they kindly taught us the train lesson 101. A simple gesture saved us a lot of time.
After reaching Namba station, the next obstacle was to find our hotel. The hotel is only 3 minutes on foot west of the train station, but we had no idea which way was west. We stumbled around for 10 minutes with luggage in tow, trying several directions, before a mid-aged man riding a bicycle stopped next to me, took the paper in my hand without even saying anything (I printed the hotel's website, which was in Japanese only), studied for one minute, then pointed to one direction ahead, and gesture left. We figured he meant the hotel was in that direction. That's all we needed, a correct direction to walk to. We thanked him and found our hotel 3 minutes later on the left side of the street.
1. Our hotel. The room was small but clean. They charged 11,500 Yen/night for two people, decent price.
By the time we checked into the hotel, it was 8:00 pm. We were starving. So we headed out to Dotonbori, a famous food street nearby. The place was packed with people.
2. There were many street vendors selling octopus balls. Too much food, too little stomach, so we didn't get to eat them in Osaka. Later we tried some in Kyoto. They were nothing like the ones in Osaka. Big regret :(
3. The famous crab sign. There are several of them on the street. They are giant, and they all can move.
4. Before coming to Osaka, our friend John told us, when he was in Osaka years ago, he loved a dish that looked like a pancake, with many things on top. I looked online, figured that he was probably referring to okonomiyaki. And here we are, we found a street vendor selling it. Many people were waiting in line to buy it. So we waited too.
5. Adding mayonnaise. The Japanese seem to love mayonnaise. They even add it to sushi.
6. Our okonomiyaki (450 Yen), We both loved it.
7. The famous Glico Running Man sign. Not sure why he is so famous.
8. Dave likes this sign better :)
9. While heading back to our hotel, Dave found another food street next to the train station. There were all kinds of restaurants still open at 10:00 pm. We tried a conveyor belt sushi place. All plates were 120 Yen each (tax included). I couldn't believe sushi can be this cheap in Japan. During my two weeks stay in Japan, I ended up eating sushi 7 times and still felt that I haven't had enough! This was one of the small conveyor belt sushi place we have been to. Upto 40 customers sat around the conveyor belt on little stools. Three sushi chefs stood in the middle of the conveyor belt, making sushi constantly to fill the belt. At the end of the meal, the waitress came over to count the plates.
(To be continued)
Even though it is one leg shorter than flying back to China, the 14 hr flight (the second leg of the trip) from Detroit to Osaka was a torture nonetheless. The airline has been doing a great job selling their seats. Every seat on the plane was occupied, making the flight extra tortuous.
We arrived at Osaka's international airport around 6:00 pm. Found an ATM and got some money before we could do anything. It seems the Japanese live on cash. Credit cards are not accepted at many places. There are ATM machines everywhere, but most of them won't accept international ATM cards neither, except the ones at international airports, post offices, and 7-Eleven convenience stores. Good thing 7-Elevens are everywhere, and they are open 24/7. So getting cash wasn't hard during our trip.
Our hotel is in Namba, one of Osaka's two major city centers. I thought the best way to reach our hotel was to take the airport limousine bus that goes to Osaka City Air Terminal (OCAT). Thinking maybe they would deliver us right to the hotel, but the girl at the airport tourist information desk told us: no, they don't do deliver, and it is a further walk from OCAT to the hotel than from the Nankai Namba station. She said the best way to reach our hotel is to take the Nankai express train, which costs 890 Yen, and takes ~45 minutes. So we took her advice, and got on the train.
There were only a handful of people in the carriage we were in, two of them were an old Japanese couple in their 60s. Two stops later, most of the people got off, including the couple. Just when we were wondering what's going on, the husband came back, and asked us in English, "Where are you going?" We said "Namba". He said "you need to get off the train and exchange to a different train". We had no idea that we needed to exchange. So we hurried off the train and waited at the same platform with everyone else. It turned out, the train we were on was a local train, it would stop at every station, making it very slow to reach Namba. The train we were waiting for is the express train, it would only make a few stops before reaching the final destination - Namba, so we could get there in ~45 minutes. The couple figured that we were tourists, we had to be going to Namba than anywhere else, so they kindly taught us the train lesson 101. A simple gesture saved us a lot of time.
After reaching Namba station, the next obstacle was to find our hotel. The hotel is only 3 minutes on foot west of the train station, but we had no idea which way was west. We stumbled around for 10 minutes with luggage in tow, trying several directions, before a mid-aged man riding a bicycle stopped next to me, took the paper in my hand without even saying anything (I printed the hotel's website, which was in Japanese only), studied for one minute, then pointed to one direction ahead, and gesture left. We figured he meant the hotel was in that direction. That's all we needed, a correct direction to walk to. We thanked him and found our hotel 3 minutes later on the left side of the street.
1. Our hotel. The room was small but clean. They charged 11,500 Yen/night for two people, decent price.
By the time we checked into the hotel, it was 8:00 pm. We were starving. So we headed out to Dotonbori, a famous food street nearby. The place was packed with people.
2. There were many street vendors selling octopus balls. Too much food, too little stomach, so we didn't get to eat them in Osaka. Later we tried some in Kyoto. They were nothing like the ones in Osaka. Big regret :(
3. The famous crab sign. There are several of them on the street. They are giant, and they all can move.
4. Before coming to Osaka, our friend John told us, when he was in Osaka years ago, he loved a dish that looked like a pancake, with many things on top. I looked online, figured that he was probably referring to okonomiyaki. And here we are, we found a street vendor selling it. Many people were waiting in line to buy it. So we waited too.
5. Adding mayonnaise. The Japanese seem to love mayonnaise. They even add it to sushi.
6. Our okonomiyaki (450 Yen), We both loved it.
7. The famous Glico Running Man sign. Not sure why he is so famous.
8. Dave likes this sign better :)
9. While heading back to our hotel, Dave found another food street next to the train station. There were all kinds of restaurants still open at 10:00 pm. We tried a conveyor belt sushi place. All plates were 120 Yen each (tax included). I couldn't believe sushi can be this cheap in Japan. During my two weeks stay in Japan, I ended up eating sushi 7 times and still felt that I haven't had enough! This was one of the small conveyor belt sushi place we have been to. Upto 40 customers sat around the conveyor belt on little stools. Three sushi chefs stood in the middle of the conveyor belt, making sushi constantly to fill the belt. At the end of the meal, the waitress came over to count the plates.
(To be continued)
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