Big Dec/Jan Trip 25/26

We were having a sleep in until an alarm went off at 6:30am on a child's phone. We relaxed until getting a 7-11 breakfast at 8am, then packed. After this we relaxed until 10:45am, and checked out.

We then walked to the Rice flour Taiyaki place at 11am. After this we walked to the Kawaramachi area and did some more shopping. Got some cheap shoes. At 1:35pm we went and lined up at Loco Chicken for yet another chicken burger.

We left there and walked back to the hotel arriving at 3pm. We grabbed our bags and got a taxi to Kyoto station 1,800yen for the 2.1km. At the station son and I did a 25min dash over to donki for a last ice-cream hit. He needed an exercise outlet. Then we gathered the others at 4pm and headed to the Haruka platform and we waiting there at 4:15pm for our 4:30pm departure.

Sooooo, we are sitting on the train when an announcement says that the kyoto line all trains suspended due to personal injury, and it will be a long while, an hour or more. As it took a while for all this information to be disseminated, it was about 5pm before we enacted our quickly devised alternative plan to get to the airport. We caught the kyoto metro 2 stops, then jumped on a Hankyu train to Osaka-umeda, that took just under an hour. The trains were jam packed, we were sardines in for 40mins. At Osaka-Umeda we did a very brisk walk to Osaka station to catch the loop line to the airport, as the Haruka trains were delay affected. So we did a mad dash between the stations and managed to get seats for the 1hr 15min journey. Then we had a 50min bag drop check in. So quickly went through security and had about 15mins to grab food before boarding.

Our flight went fine. Upon landing however, we approached immigration and an alarm sounded and kept sounding. They were evacuating the airport and shutting down all services, baggage, customs etc. We managed to get through immigration at a manned gate, as they shut the electronic ones. But because baggage handlers had been evacuated there was no baggage coming out. So we were stuck in baggage for an hour. Got out of airport at 10:20am.Read more