Japan via Kuala Lumpur

Well, here we are in Osaka, Japan! The 7 hour plane journey was OK. we both managed maybe 2 hours of sleep, which is a miracle! We arrived at Kansai Airport on time at 0545 and enacted our well researched and rehearsed list of tasks.
Firstly, and most challenging of all, was to find a toilet! We then withdrew Yen, bought our ICOCA cards (for train travel and they can be used to purchase food, etc) and booked our train ticket on the Nankai Rapi.t Express to Namba (near Osaka). We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves and very grateful for all the YouTube videos we watched which have helped enormously.
The 30 min train trip into Namba was smooth and fast. We then decided to swap trains to a local service and get to within 400 metres of our hotel. The easy way would have been to get a taxi, but we wanted to test ourselves because we will be using trains a lot in the next month. This was perhaps, on reflection, a mistake because we got completely bamboozled and had no idea where we were! We eventually got the local train, but we have no idea how we did!
We arrived at the hotel around 0930 hot and bothered. Thankfully we were able to negotiate an early check in (5000 Y extra) so we could shower and have a rest.
We then went on a reconnaissance mission to find out exactly where we need to go to get trains for the next 2 day's tours.
We decided to walk to Dotonbori, which is Osaka's top tourist spot. The number of shops, restaurants and food stalls is mind boggling! We decided to find a restaurant called Chibo Okonomiyaki, recommended by a young American YouTube blogger, who has married a Japanese person and lives in Kyoto. This is where things got very tricky. Long story short, I (Kerrie), struggled to find the restaurant and dragged Roger around in circles, all the time he was getting more and more disgruntled (he needed a wine!) and unhappy - but food was the strong lure for me!Ah, we found this famous place, only to find that, mid afternoon, we had to stand, in the heat, for about 25 mins to get in! Roger was threatening all sorts of things!
Anyway, all is well that ends well! We were seated in front of the Okonomiyaki Chef and were treated to absolutely delicious food, wine and entertainment!
Okonomiyaki is a Japanese tappanyaki savoury pancake consisting of wheat flour batter with lots of other ingredients (meat, seafood, cabbage, all sorts of sauces and decorated very theatrically (as you will see in the videos) with Japanese mayonnaise! We ate half our meal so we now have enough for dinner tomorrow night!
The weather in Japan is hot and humid, but not as hot as Kuala Lumpur. That's the wrap for Day 1 in Japan!Читать далее