Last year in the fall, we had a family trip to Japan. This time, I was responsible for planning the whole thing. I once read somewhere that the best part of a trip is the planning part. I disagree, but yes, it does add to the fun!
Right by the aquarium there was the Tempozan Ferris Wheel. The hubby and Kiki went on it. I am afraid of heights so I was happy to sit at the bottom and plan our next move. We had ramen for lunch, the taste was so so. I think Ikkudo Ichi in Jakarta tastes better. I also tried the famous takoyaki there and it was also so-so. I haven't tried a better takoyaki than Ed's takoyaki in Winnipeg!
By the time we finished in that area Miss Kiki was already so tired and cranky that we decided to drop the rest of the plan and head to Kyoto. If I get the chance to visit Osaka again, I would want to go to the Instant Ramen Museum, Sumiyoshi Taisha, Shitennoji temple and park, Tonbori river walk, and the Asahi Brewery.
So I did my research and created itineraries, booked hotels and applied for a Visa. Yes, Indonesian passport holders still need to apply for a Visa to go to Japan, or almost any other non South East Asian countries for that matter. Everything was set.... or was it?
I totally over estimated Miss Kiki's speed and ability to walk far, nor did I foresee that the hubby would get sick the night before our trip. Well, that made it extra memorable in the end.....
During my research, I came across several websites that were quite useful. If you were to plan a trip to Japan, I highly recommend checking out http://www.japan-guide.com/. There you can find almost everything you need to know about visiting Japan, including the best spots for viewing their fall colours, cherry blossoms, museum closures, new points of interests, food, and many more.
If you can understand Indonesian, for transportation I recommend visiting http://jalansendirijepang.wordpress.com/ He has an explanation there on when it would make sense to buy the JR Pass, places to stay, sample itineraries, as well as other information based on personal experiences. Based on this, I bought our ticket flying into Osaka from Jakarta, and flying out of Tokyo. In between, we bought Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets and not the JR Pass, which saves us time and is more cost efficient because we do not have to make a round trip with Shinkansen just to catch a plane.
So our grand itinerary was 1 night in Osaka, 2 nights in Kyoto, 3 nights in Tokyo, and 1 night in Hakone. For this post, I will talk only about our Osaka trip, and the other cities will just have to wait....
With a 4 year old in tow, we knew that we needed to pack as light as possible, as we read that the trains don't usually allow large suitcases and that the train stations don't always have elevators or escalators. We don't want to be stuck having to carry large suitcases up a stair case, with a possibility of carrying a toddler too!
Our flight landed at around 9:30 pm at the Osaka Kansai International Airport. By the time we got our luggage, go through immigration, customs, and the body heat check point, it was already well past 10 pm and I was starting to worry that we were going to miss our train to the hotel. But where do we go? I stared at a screen for a while, desperately trying to make something out of it. I knew we needed to go to the Namba Station, and then walk to our hotel which is supposedly 500 m away. Then suddenly the screen made sense and I figured we had a few minutes left to catch that last train! So off we ran.... with suitcases, kid, and all. Fortunately, the train station was closer than I expected. Really close actually,...... but a problem remains.... many gates, different colours, many signs, neither made sense. There was an officer at the information booth there. I expected correctly though, that he did not speak any English. This is when my Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook came in handy. This was when we did not have internet yet, so Google Translate was not an option.
We finally got to our train. Yaaaay! Train ride was pretty uneventful, not too different than taking a train in Singapore or KL. The stations were clearly named and it was easy for us to know when we needed to get off. Luck was not on our side though, it was already too late when we arrived at the station so most of their exits were closed. There was only one exit we could take and I did not know how to get to the hotel from there! I already checked out the hotel on Google Streetview, so I sort of knew what it was supposed to look like, but at night time everything looked different. There were several occassions we asked passer-by's for direction, but the language barrier was not helping. We did find out though, that people in Osaka were extremely friendly and they really try to be helpful. Even when they don't speak English.
After going round and round for what seemed to be almost half an hour, we found our hotel! I had booked Hotel Hillary's and this one I booked through Agoda. it was very interesting, there was a small sign for the hotel, then a door that leads to a stair case and an elevator. That's it. Oh, and a sign that said the lobby was on the 2nd floor. So up we went and got our room. Small as expected, but clean and quite comfortable. By the lobby they have free drink dispenser, with coffee, orange drink, soft drinks, and Japanese green tea, Free ice cubes, and a shampoo and soap bar. Yup, your read right. Soap and shampoo bar. In the bathroom they supplied not mini bottles of shampoos and soap like what we were used to, but a big bottle of Shiseido and Kao soap and shampoo. If you don't like those, you are free to get some from the bar by the lobby by dispensing what you need to a little cups they provided. There had to be more than a dozen options there. You've probably heard that they have really fancy toilets in Japan. Well, here's a picture ;)
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| Fancy Toilet |
In the morning we found out that they also provided free bike rental. Unfortunately they did not have any bikes with a child seat so we decided to go on foot. It was a nice warm day in October, we were out in jeans and light shirts. On that one day, I had planned to visit about 5 places in Osaka. Well….. that did not happen. Now I know better.
Near our hotel, in Namba (Nanba) area, there was a roofed street market. Many interesting stores, restaurants, and snack places around. Osaka is famous for their food culture, and you can see a little bit of that here. We decided to have Sushi Kaiten (sushi on plates on conveyer belt) for breakfast. Many of the restaurants have promotions and this one was about 120 yen per plate. Not bad! This was our first sushi in Japan and it was awesome. Just awesome. We asked for ocha (japanese green tea) for our drink and the guy showed me a stack of cups on the table. He must have figured that we were not sure what to do so he showed us how to make the drink. There was a bottle of ocha powder that we can pour into our cup, and there was a tap at the corder of the table for hot water. Voila! Ocha is served! After breakfast we passed by a stall selling small cakes shaped like people. Apparently they were a famous comedy group there. The texture is like a waffle, or in indonesia we can compare that to kue Bolu.
The next thing on our list was the Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium. We stopped at the tourist centre at the station to buy our Osaka Kaiyu Ticket, which includes the entrance ticket to the aquarium as well as free access to different transportation modes for that day. The Aquarium was easily found, they had signs everywhere from the train station. It was a great day for walking. Inside the aquarium, we saw many different sea creatures and Miss Kiki had a blast. From sea angels to sharks and stingray, the sun fish, sun starfish, big fish, small fish, it was great! We also got to pet small sharks and sting rays.
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| Sun Starfish |
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| Jellyfish |
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| Jellyfish |
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| Jellyfish |
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| Tempozan Ferris Wheel |
By the time we finished in that area Miss Kiki was already so tired and cranky that we decided to drop the rest of the plan and head to Kyoto. If I get the chance to visit Osaka again, I would want to go to the Instant Ramen Museum, Sumiyoshi Taisha, Shitennoji temple and park, Tonbori river walk, and the Asahi Brewery.
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| Starbucks Origami Coffee |
Oh, I almost forgot a very important part. Our internet! What we did was rent a pocket wifi which is basically a modem that you carry around and you can connect your devices to it for internet services. We got ours from Global Advanced and we highly recommend it. Our pocket wifi was already at the hotel when we checked in and we used it throughout our travel in different cities. All we had to do was drop it off in a mailbox with the envelope provided before we enter the airport departure gate to return it. The internet speed was amazing!
Well, that concludes this post, see you next time!
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