別の外人

Wow, I can't actually believe it, but I am now here. Currently sitting in a youth hostel in Shin Osaka (which I would coincidentally really recommend to anyone thinking of travelling this way...) with a load of mad children running around and Japanese game shows playing. Oh and there is the largest amount of manga I think I have ever seen... an entire wall is covered. Think of the size of Michael Sadler LG 17, take a wall and cover it in bookshelves. Yeah... too much kanji for one girl to handle ^^;;

Been enjoying the Engrish as well so far, had a little 2 year old Japanese boy with a t-shirt on that read 'D is for dreamy. O is for openness. G is for gentle. LABRA' ... Dunno why they missed the DOR off LABRADOR or maybe there's a secret meaning... Who knows.

Saw an epic vending machine in the train station at Kansai International Airport:

"Drinks packed in paper carton
are kind to the environment.
They will surely put you
who drinks them in a kind mood
Won't you too refresh
with a delicious soft drink?"

... It was not just juice cartons of date juice, but also icecream cones. Wow.





Back to the actual journey to get here...
Before we left my house, I had a minor stress attack about the weight of my luggage and my hand luggage. Turns out all that worry was for nothing, as my luggage weighted 30.3 (I think the guy ignored me being over the limit by 0.3) and hand luggage I think was 7kg, but they never even weighed it. Thank god :D Weird though, coz people who flew from Birmingham had their hand luggage weighed...

I didn't set the security alarm off, yay :D Wandered around Heathrow, ate a carrot cake and a sandwich, went to the boarding gate but couldn't board straight away as the luggage guy had put both mine and Laura's luggage receipt on my boarding pass, and this really confused the check in lady, who made us see the supervisor (who blatantly didn't actually care xD)

The plane was SO big and it had STAIRS though we couldn't go up them sadly enough coz there was a velvet rope barring the way... SO many films and tv shows we could watch and music we could listen to, even multiplayer games on every screen on the back of every seat haha. Took 7 hours, we were tired by arrival, though the airplane food helped to perk us up a bit. Arrived in Dubai in the middle of the night, had the problem of some places only accepting UED when we had every other currency, but met up with Juni, Anna and Camilla which was nice :D Found Jamie eventually down the steps after we had checked in, though we had temporarily lost Peter at that point :P Dubai arrivals security was so much more laidback than Heathrow was, my liquids could stay in my bag, all I had to do was take off my jumper. Result. But yeah was pretty good. Though I did manage to get moaned at by a scary looking Dubai police officer in his army-esque uniform for loitering... least I presume it was loitering, the command was in Arabic.

The plane to KIX took soooooooo long, from 3am Dubai time to 5pm Japan time, so you've no idea if you should be awake or asleep. We all tried to sleep, but, with the exception of Peter, none of us really managed it that well. I napped on and off throughout the journey, but kept getting too uncomfortable, or getting woken up by a really annoying child who kept doing this throat clearing sound, but which was about 5 seconds long each time. And then he'd scream. Grr.

Arrived at about 5pm, had the massive queue for security (with the fun woman who allocated you to your queue and was very abrupt: 'Dozo' and then you /had/ to leave. Also loved the massive sign saying FOREIGNERS THIS WAY xD the Japanese people got a lot more staff as well... We handed in our disembarkation forms, and I got my temporary visitor visa :D Then luggage reclaim, Jamie's luggage appeared near to the end as we came through, so he had to quickly grab it. I had forgotten just how heavy mine is... Finally was customs, nothing to declare for me though the security guy did ask suspiciously 'What are you doing in Japan?' which apparently nobody else got asked.

Everyone else got collected by Kansai Gaidai, I wandered upstairs to try and find the JR ticket office, found it, only spoke to the guy at the counter in Japanese, and now I have my railpass :D The ticket guy told me which train to get in Japanese, and I understood that too :) Pleasing times.

Waited for the train, was amazed by the many staff CLEANING IT (seriously, hoovers, hand hoovers, everything. Looked like new) when it arrived, had a random Ugandan guy try and start a convo with me but I wouldn't let him, watched the staff keep on rotating the chairs, and then got on the train. The guy in front of me in the queue who was Japanese helped me with my suitcase, then asked me questions about London and Stonehenge as he's apparently going on a business trip there next week. He helped me get my luggage off the train, and even though he only had '6 minutes until my Shinkansen train' it was 'plenty of time' so he first directed me to the gate out I needed. Walked down the road at about 8pm with my big suitcase, there were no signs for the hostel but eventually found it, and it's really nice :) On the 10th floor, but with the bedrooms on the 9th, and the view from my room is amazing, will take pictures.

Right now, writing this from the lobby area of the hostel, it's pretty amazing :D

Will write next from Utsunomiya, most likely :)