Day 21 - Osaka - (Hillbrook Italics) Transitions (/Hillbrook Italics)

Today, we left Mt Fuji in a storm of snow, bound for Osaka once again; we had changed our plans a little bit. Initially, we were meant to spend our last full night in Hamamatsu, located half way back along the coast, however, when we realised that it was just more efficient to get all our train-ing out of the way in one day, we opted for that, and booked Osaka. It would've been nice to see a new town, however with dwindling funds, and many souvenirs still to buy, as well as being only half an hour away from the airport (instead of upwards of 3 hours), Osaka was clearly better choice.

Adelaide and I both woke up at our seperate hours of the morning once again. When I woke, I discovered that overnight the forecast of snow had been exceptionally accurate, and everything outside our window was covered with another inch of snow, and increasing. This cut down the visibility, and we were no longer about to see Mt Fuji, let alone the buildings further into the town anymore. It was bittersweet, not being able to see Mt Fuji, but at the same time, seeing snow for one last time. I couldn't get back to sleep once I woke at 6am, so I caught up on more Youtube while Adelaide slumbered.

Her alarm went off at 7.30, and our initial dialogue of the morning was "I don't want fish for breakfast". Despite we gave our second japanese dinner our all the night before, when similar things were going to be served again, our integrity weakened. Nevertheless, we made ourselves moderately presentable for breakfast, and headed down (there were many morning faces down there already). Once again, we were presented with a lavishly made platter of food. In the spirit of being away, I tried nearly everything, while Adelaide stuck more with the familiar things, and suffered from her morning lack of dexterity, spilling her tea and dropping her chopstick. She clearly needed coffee.

Morning Faces

Nice view for breakfast

A lovely view for our coffee

So after a quicker than usual breakfast, we headed down to the lobby where we booked our free shuttle bus to Kawaguchiko station for 9.30, after we'd checked out. The 'cafe' they have is on the mezzanine, just up a small flight of stairs, so we moved there to get our morning coffees. It was quite nice, sitting in the same spots we had the day before, yet this time it was snowing outside. The hotel was significantly busier today too, as there had been a function on the previous night, and so many people were in and out of the lobby and cafe.

The activity of the foyer broke our peace, and with our check out time approaching, we returned to our room for a final soak in our private onsen bath. This time, without Mt Fuji in view, the snow was our background and made for a far more refreshing bath. We showered and packed, and returned to lobby just before 9.30, and the staff took our bags into the bus while we paid off our massages, praying that Addy's card would clear the payment.

The 800m bus ride back through town was quite lucky, as it would've taken us ages to make it that far on foot, and this time, the driver didn't surprise a charge on us once we arrived. We went into the station and were directed by an attendant on which ticket to purchase. As the Mt. Fuji / Kawaguchiko line is linear, you can't really go wrong either way. Jumping on the train on platform 3 as we were advised, we discovered that this was a local train, as the express trains didn't run so often. It didn't bother us though as our plan for the day could allow for it. It gave us time to enjoy the winter wonderland views on the way back to Otsuki Station and I gave Adelaide an American geography lesson.

We only had half an hour layover in Otsuki station before our train swung by to pick us up, so we bought our tickets then headed back to the same bakery we'd stopped off at for lunch on our way in, this time buying a small pizza and crossiant each. We held of eating them there, and made our way to our platform.

Our second leg was a Limited Express AZUSA 10 to Hachioji Station, and it took us around half an hour. We tried to enjoy the views, but as we skimmed through tunnels at the base of valleys, we soon reverted to Fruit Ninja. Once at Hachioji, we then had to run over a few platforms, to catch the Yokohama JR line to Shin-Yokohama which left ~15 minutes later. This leg took closer to 40 minutes to complete, and at this stage the snow had turned into light rain.

At Shin-Yokohama, we left the JR gates and went over to the Shinkansen Platforms, where we boarded HIKARI 513, which was our biggest trip of the day. Leaving at 12.50ish, and arriving at Osaka at 3.30, we made multiple stops at stations along the way. As the train had come from further up the coast, when we boarded, we had to awkwardly ask a person to move as, while she had the right seat, she was 4 cars behind them. With the assistance of the guy sitting on the isle seat, she saw her error and very apologetically moved.

We settled in for the ride, listening to music. Adelaide declined my earlier offer of fried pork sandwiches which I had picked up at a Bento box store on the platform at Shin-Yokohama - as their more western options had all been taken. They were alright as lunch, but didn't impress Adelaide, so in failing to find a vending machine on the train, snacked on Toppo she bought from the snack cart lady.

We passed through Kyoto before arriving at Shin-Osaka, and we had cool views of rain showers approaching and passing as we went. Once we'd arrived back at Shin-Osaka station, we had to catch a subway to Namba. When we were booking our alternative route, we had checked to see if there were any options near Shin-Osaka station, however we were too late and the only ones that were free were rediculously expensive, thus we'd found a pretty neat little place outside Namba station. It was a busy subway ride, and a few stops away from our destination we were able to snag some seats.

Outside Namba subway station, we had to do some landmark orienteering to find our hotel, Monterey Rasmere, which I spied the top of the building when we stopped to try and figure out where we were. The night before, Adelaide was telling me that it was a love hotel which had me a little concerned as I'd heard about what some of the 'love' hotels were like in Japan. Once we were able to navigate up the first 22 floors of the hotel to the lobby, these were quashed... somewhat.

Hotel Monterey Rasmere is a decadent european styled hotel, ideally setup for weddings. As you walk out of the lifts, the lobby splits into two, one section for the concierge, and the other has a chapel built into it, with a glass roof above it. This floor also has waiting rooms and a photo studio. The surrounding levels also have bridal stores, make up rooms, waiting rooms and multiple halls, so you do the math.

When we realised we'd gotten a room on the 31st floor (the top), we realised what a deal we had gotten when booking. For $150, the normally $200 room is seated on the South Western side of the building, and we can see part of the city and out to the bay. It's a bit smaller than other rooms we've had but it's nice. Once we got our stuff settled, we spent a while trying to do our online check in for our flight, spending more time just trying to access it as Jetstar was being stupid with our details (eventually letting us in under my name, despite we booked it under Adelaides, go figure). Being well inside the 48 hours, we had gotten shoddy seats, down the very back of the plane but there's not much we can do about that, and besides, we plan on sleeping for most of the Osaka-Cairns leg anyway. We also couldn't print the confirmation form, so we did some nifty photoshoping of the page, as all they need to do is check it at the check in.

At this point, Addy was starving, and with only 5000 Yen left, we opted for a budget dinner of Maccas; echoing my mantra that when your overseas, you've gotta have maccas at least once. As we went to leave our room, we opened the door to two surprised Japanese girls. We think they were a little lost but they didn't really seem like they were in for a chat, so we headed downstairs.

The McDonalds was in the neighboring building, but whoever designed it really hadn't thought it through. There was a shopping centre built ontop of it, and Namba JR station was below it. There were signs inside the building directing you downstairs for a number of things... but there weren't any stairs. The only ones that were available were outside, so after some confusion we managed to find our dinner. We feasted like kings, before we left to pick up dessert at the 7-Eleven around the corner. There Adelaide bought an icecream and some doughnuts, dissapointed that they didn't have any Chocolate-man instock, afterwhich we returned to the hotel room for the night.

Tomorrow, we're going to go back to a few of the major shopping spots to finish up our time in Japan. Until then, Goodnight!