Day 8: Trip to Osaka

Today we left Seoul and went to Osaka. We took the express train to the airport. The trip went smoothly, so we arrived way before check-in time. We decided to get some donuts at Dunkin Donuts to pass the time.

After finishing our donuts we checked-in our luggage and paid for heavy baggage (yes, we knew one of the suitcases would be too heavy). After passing customs we went to the Charlie Brown Cafe, but they were sold out of all the cute food, so we decided to eat something at KFC.

We flew whit peach air, a daughter company from ANA. The company had chosen purple as their main color, so everything had a light purple color, including the airplane.

At arrival at Kansai International Airport we set out to buy universal tickets. There was a really useful information center, right outside the baggage pick-up. The friendly lady there pointed us to the JR ticket office to buy our tickets. We had to take a free shuttle bus to another building, where we also had to be for the train to Osaka centrum. We had a bit of trouble figuring out the Japanese rail system, but just as in Korea everyone is willing to help you.
We managed to find the hotel without too many difficulties. We just needed to follow a straight road from Nipponbashi station. We were staying in the Yamatoya Honten Ryokan Osaka, in a traditional room. We had to sleep on the floor (we did have our own bathroom), during the evening the hotel staff would get our beds from a closet and make them up for us, and in the morning they put them back in the closet. The hotel has a great location, right in the middle of the shopping area. Dotonbori was literally next door and we could walk to the lolita shops (yay!).

However, except for its great location I would not recommend this hotel. The rooms are tiny and there is a horrible smell in the room. On top of that, because of a small leak in the toilet flush your hands get wet every time you flush the toilet, yuck! Besides, they advertise themselves as being a hotel with Wi-Fi, something we selected our hotels on, but the Wi-Fi hardly works, and if it does it is extremely slow.
To add a bit more positive feelings to this post, we had a great first dinner in Japan. We went to a sushi restaurant, where we ordered sushi and sashimi. We also got to try the famous mackerel sushi. Everything tasted delicious!

All photos can be found at my flickr page