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Con ban wa. Or good evening and greetings from Japan. It has been a long day but we have finally arrived. It all started this morning when Daylight Savings finished at 2am. Thought I had it sorted as I had taken the auto Timezone off my phone and set the alarm, setting Chris' trusty Darth Vader as the back up... One problem. Darth was not so trusty and my phone decided to auto correct, moving itself back a further hour than it should have. I woke to the bedside clock which is digital and auto-corrects and it said 4.07am. Yikes the cab was booked for 4.30! Needless to say there was some rapid heart beating as we threw the last of our stuff together,showered ,dressed and were ready when the cab arrived. Destination domestic airport for our Jetstar flight to cairns.
There was time to grab a very quick brekkie and then away. It was a pleasant flight and reasonably comfortable in row one. At Cairns there is about a 500m walk to the International
Terminal. And when we got there the queue was massive! An entire plane load of school kids... Japanese ones going home. Turns out they were clogging up the check in as the Tokyo flight had not opened yet. Finally they saw sense and moved us to another place to check in but there was no down time before joining the boarding queue for the leg to Osaka.
Seven hours passed quickly, reading and napping and Chris watched some movies on the Tablet. Jetstar has very average service but the seats were comfortable as we had an exit row. The queue when we got to the customs hall was HUGE! It took over an hour to clear customs, but in truly organised Japanese style the suitcases were all lined up in perfect rows. Out of the terminal and the first thing we see is Starbucks. Oh No! They haunt us wherever we go. The JR office was just outside the terminal and that is where we had to go to get our Japan rail passes which are our means of transport for the next week. Then it was in to the platform to watch the train being cleaned and the seats being rotated through 180 degrees as if by magic so they faced in the right direction.
Kyoto is just over an hour from Osaka and the train was very efficient. The hotel Granvia is literally on top of the station so we checked in and went to find somewhere to have dinner as it was already 9pm and our body clock was saying 11pm. So a shared meal of Pork Katsu Roll with Miso soup, salad rice and pickles. Real Japanese cuisine.
We had thought about a train trip to Gion tonight but we are both so tired that it is bed, to sleep for tomorrow and our big adventure to Hiroshima.
And if you are interested, here is the map we are following:
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