Day 3 - hello, Osaka

The husband and I had planned to go for the hotel breakfast; but that did not happen as we slept in. We got up just in time to pack our luggage, check out and deposit one bag with the hotel; and the day never really starts for me until I get my coffee fix. Thankfully, I got one cuppa while we made our way to the airport bus-stop for our ride to the airport.



Good company

See? Coffee makes me such a nicer person in the morning

After checking in, the husband and I had time for an early lunch. We looked for simple fare at their version of a food court and each picked our food type.

Noodles for him, stew for her.

Onboard the plane

It was a short flight of about 2 hours and it did not take long for me to nap. The husband was perplexed that I did because I usually never ever take naps. I think it was truly a time for my body to recalibrate and rest. Felt awesome.


Upon arrival, we made our way to the train station and tried to figure out the way to our hotel. It took us an hour from the Osaka Kansai Airport to the Osaka Station. We had trusty printouts with broken English instructions that led us from 'cross the road/ see a tall building/ go straight', and with my capable and strong husband who navigated and controlling our one piece of luggage, we found our apartment!

Enroute to our apartment

Don't be jelly of my strong, personal butler! He's also veh handsome.  

And from this pic, he also looks veh tall (short doors!)

At this stage, I was famished. It was nearly 3-4pm and we had brunch ages ago and I had a headache from being hungry. Bleagh. We literally sat in our small apartment for a few minutes and I said, "let's go now. We need to eat!" Thankfully, being in a central area, we found a restaurant that was open and hopped right in.

Menu in handwritten Jap. Google translate failed us.

When in Japan, eat sushi!

I was a much happier person once I had food in my belly. I do not do hunger well. After this light dinner of beer, sushi and some beef; the husband and I wasted no time to head to Dotonburi, the main stretch of attraction in Osaka. Summer is great, because the skies were still bright despite it being past 6pm, and the whole place exuded a buzz with lots of chatter, tourists and happy vibes.

Greetings from Dotonburi, Osaka 

We strolled the streets and saw food, food and more food. It was sheer heaven for us! Hah!
 

Takoyaki - we had to try, despite not being fans of sotong

Besides that, we also had beers with meat-sticks (yum), along the river with music playing, we also tried crab feet, and took in the ambience. It felt truly surreal that we were now in Japan when we were only in Seoul hours ago. Hooray to travel and new experiences! After a few hours, our tummy was full and we decided to take train back to our apartment.


Wasn't hard, and we managed to figure out the short train ride back to our apartment; train station Umeda. So, a funny thing happened on this ride where the husband made an observation that there were many females in Japan; I took a look around our cabin and nodded my head in agreement. At a train stop, the doors opened and it struck me that the whole cabin had plenty of pink stickers all around. It donned on us that we had inadvertently stepped into a female-only cabin! HAHAHA!

Don't read Jap, but those Chinese words say "female"... oops!

When we got to our station, it took us another half hour to figure out where our apartment was. The streets all looked similar and the underground roads made everything look identical. Thankfully, the husband had GPS on his watch and we made it back. We topped up on water, snacks and beer, and headed back. It felt so early for a Friday (it was, maybe midnight?) but I did not know where else to go, or how much more my tummy could take and so we headed back to chill in our living room.
I felt slightly uncomfortable in this new/strange place that wasn't a hotel and took a shower with the doors ajar, plus waited for the husband to be ready to go into the bedroom together. Just felt slightly creeped out. Ha!


What a first day in Japan!