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Japan 2.0: The Traveling
By Nick Hodge | July 6, 2007
Up at 6:00am, arrive at airport at 8:30am and through checkin, customs and immigration. Our checked in baggage weighs 31kg; and other carry on is 25kg. Including assorted liquids under 100ml.
OK, what's the deal with putting your 100ml liquids into a plastic bag. The security guys at Sydney International grabbed some poor Chinese student's fish oil tablets and poured them into a plastic bag. Then handed him the plastic bag and the empty container. The poor bemused student just walked away. Still cannot work out why the baggie was required.
The exchange rate with Japan Yen is highly favourable for this trip: Travelex at the airport is 94.4 Yen to 1 AU. If you are a NZ'er, time to come to AU as the exchange rate is 1:1. Quick purchases at the airport included a new Lonely Planet City Guide for Tokyo.
Through Gate 31 onto the JetStar Airbus A330-202 into our Starclass seats. Yes, Starclass. Paid the extra and the unexpected result was 5 seats over 3 of us. Starclass to Osaka Kansai was 50% full. Half of the Economy seats were populated with about 2000 Japanese school girls.
Sleeping over PNG, watching various movies on the small, self-contained "digi-E-Players". JetStar gets a solid 7 out of 10. -1 for food, -1 for lack of movie selection and -1 for the old, slighlty smelly Airbus. Looks distinctly like a Qantas hand-me-down.
Landing took all the Kansai terminal buildings. Yes, we landed at one end of the terminal at a couple of hundred kms/hr and slowed down and taxi'd into the other end of the terminal. It's that big. Our arrival gate, gate 6, was sponsored by Panasonic.
Liam meets Samjung at Immigration control. Same school and year as Liam, but from Korea. Arrived in Osaka on a Qantas flight yet was 10 people ahead of us in the immigration line. Their family plans is to go to Universal Studios in Osaka.
We're through immigration, collected the 31kg behemoth bag and onto the Limousine bus to Osaka CBD within 10 minutes. Osaka is 25degC and rather humid, fully expected.
A 50 minute ride through the Kansai night looking at love hotels, pachinko bars, canals, heavy industrial works and finally Osaka.
Lemon flavoured beer? Liam explores the minibar which has lemon gel. The dunnies are very modern with their heated cleaning jets (DO WANT) and more knobs and dials than a Russian spacestation. Gel drinks. Toilets. Wow.
The future is vertical people. Vertical. Everything is vertical.
I love arriving into new places at night. The morning always surprises.
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Topics: hodgejapanjul07, personal |
July 6th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Have a great holiday, family Hodge! Something tells me Liam might have preferred the Japanese schoolgirls in cattle class...