Of-course I get Gate 8! I’ve had some pretty severe family issues going on for a while now, definitely nothing to brag about… I thought there would be nothing better than to spend some quality time with my fave person on the planet, and that’s my Mum, so we’re off to Japan together for 8 days, a country which she took me to nearly every year as a child, should be a blast!
Mum!
We’re going on a budget tour, but I’m flying with Mum, and that means in style! These chairs flatten right out into a bed, and damn I literally teleported to HK!!!
We’ve left 3 months of rain in Sydney for more rain… Boo! Tour guide says it’ll be sunny tomorrow though!
We only made a quick transit in HK, then we landed in Osaka.
As soon as we stepped out in to the airport we were greeted by Airport Staff in bright outfits handing out candy! Japan!
Pikachu!
Land of Boss.
Oh and fuck, it’s raining here too…
Haha, nice!
We landed in Osaka SUPER early, which meant we couldn’t check into the hotel yet, so instead the tour started straight away, pretty hard going for a bunch of oldies on tour, but you get what you pay for?! We headed straight for Osaka Temple.
We’ve literally come at the perfect time. The Cherry Blossoms are JUST about to pop open! Will do so over the next few days.
There was an absolutely insane historical Samurai armour display in the Castle, but no photography! Massive bummer.
After the Castle we then checked out Dotonbori, the shopping district.
Spotted: Saintside!!!
Lots and lots of paper mache signs, some, like this crab were animated (which brings me back to seeing one of these signs animating for the very first time when I was a little boy in Japan).
My first purchase!
Love the Japanese! One of the poor old ladies got lost, for at least a couple of hours in the busy streets of Dotonbori (on a very cold and wet night to boot!). The tour guides did nothing about it, and one of the more occa guys on tour decided to stand up and tell everyone in the group that we should all go back to the hotel and call the cops. I almost got into a fist fight with the fucker (he was pretty drunk and holding a beer in hand). There was no fucking way I was going to leave an old lady on her own on the streets in a country where she didn’t speak the language…
…LUCKILY for us some young Japanese kids found her, and guided her back to the restaurant we were all meant to meet at.
One of the girls broke down in tears when she saw how happy the old lady was to be reunited with the group! SO SWEET! Night made! PS: Old mate apologised more than a few times for getting worked up too, that’s a good thing as I’ll be on the tour with him for the next week!
Shabu Shabu!
Ah that budget tour. We had to walk 5 minutes in the rain, with our luggage, to the hotel! HAHAH! So awesome.
Love my little room though, so typical of cheaper hotel rooms in Japan. In fact identical to the last one I stayed in, in Tokyo!
Always remove the lower power tab off the bottom of a powerboard and bring it with you, plug it in to an adapter and you’re good to go to charge your laptop, phone and camera batteries!
Have fun! Look amazing. Smoking kills ;)