Day 22 - Osaka / Home - We're Baaacck!

So I figured I'd combine the last two days into one big post as for Adelaide and I, the days seemed to have melded together, with lots of travel involved. We made the most of the last full day in Osaka, shopping around for some gifts, as well as checking out Yodobashi Camera once more, before heading to Kansai International for our Flight Home. The flight was quite a mission, and took it's toll on our energy levels, but after 18ish long hours, we finally made it back.

We took our time to wake up on our last day in Japan. Our checkout time wasn't till 10am, and with a day of shopping ahead of us, we were in no rush. At 8.30/9ish, we finally awoke, and did preliminary pack of our bags, reorganizing them so that later in the day it would be easy to sort out for the flight. As we headed downstairs to check out, we realised at the elevator we only had one of the two keys we were given - mine was missing. I thought I'd checked the room, and upon returning and trying to figure out why the lights were still on, I realised I'd left the other key in the power slot near the door. Thankful that we didn't have to explain that to the concierge, we checked out and they took our bags, in exchange for our token to pick them back up at 3.30pm, so we didn't have to worry about them or lug them around all day.

The view from our window

Our room (albeit a bit messy)

The chapel they had on the 22nd floor of the hotel

First stop was Dotombori, and specifically Don Quijote, arguably the biggest discount store on the Dotombori shopping street. The iconic, yellow 6 floor building which has an unusual Ferris wheel on the outside, has everything you could think of - and it's cheap! We stopped on the first floor to get some food items, and then slowly made our way up through the building, picking out things we wanted to buy for home. We spent a good hour in there (on the first trip), and were happy with our findings.

Once we felt we'd thoroughly been through the store, we left it bound for the anime district in Nipponbashi that Azumi had taken us to on our first day. We headed back down Dotombori to find our way there, stopping off at a few other stores to check out their wares. Once at a big intersection on Nipponbashi, we weren't able to find the right area, and after about half an hour of frustrated looking, we decided to head back towards Dotombori.

Addy was getting hungry, so she purchased some big Gyoza to go, and while she ate it we made our way down Dotombori, checking out stores. This is where our day was a little unorganized, and we spent a few hours wandering up and down the shopping precinct and it's side streets, not sure what we were looking for. Eventually we decided to get a coffee at the Hawaii Coffee located on the river, just next to the bridge. There I purchased a French Press Coffee, while Adelaide sipped a hot chocolate. The French press was quite expensive (700 Yen), and considering that it was around half the price of last night's dinner, was maybe a bit of a rip, but it was pleasant. While we drank our beverages, we decided to stop wandering around, and with time starting to press, we headed back to the Don Quijote store for one last look, before heading over to Umeda station, which had Yodobashi-camera, where we might find some more tech things.

We purchased a few things at Don Quijote, before only needing to catch the subway four stops to Umeda. Yodobashi is so big, it has a basement level which connects on to the subway station, so we walked right in and headed for the camera floor. We bought a few more trinkets before having a quick explore on a few of the other levels. At this point it was nearing 3pm, and we knew we needed to be back at the hotel to pick up our bags, so we got the subway the 4 stops back. Adelaide's navigation skills prevailed as we got the right exit which lead out to just infront of our hotel, saving us a lot of time. The subway had made me feel a bit icky, so we took some time in the Foyer of our hotel to rest, and repacked our bag, ready for our flights. Despite it was still cool in Osaka, we packed lighter, knowing that Cairns would be far more unpleasant in multiple layers.

As the foyer thinned with people, we finally left too. Back down at Namba station, we caught a subway to Tenoji station, where we transferred over to the Kansai International Airport Shinkansen. We had a short wait on the platform for it to turn up, before we boarded and bee-lined for some free unreserved seats. It was our last train ride of our trip to Japan, and so we were quiet for a time, taking in the views as we sped our way to the airport.

We're going home :(

When we arrived at Kansai international, we made our way out of the terminal, flashing our useful JR passes for one last time, and heading over to the departures floor. Of course, when we arrived at the Jetstar lounge, there was a note on the board which indicated that the checkin wouldn't open for another hour and a half. We took advantage of this downtime to go down a floor to the restaurants and shops to do some final souvenir shopping, before stopping off at a Grill joint, for an Australian Steak and chips which came out on a hot plate. It filled us up, and we took our time to eat it, but even at the end we were still early, so we headed over to the Choco-cro just up from our dinner place, for a parfait (Adelaide), and a waffle (me). That really hit the spot, and when we were finished, check in was open.

We joined the very long queue, and eventually made it to the desk where we checked our bags. We had been very generous with bag weight when we were planning our trip, and anticipating the worst, we added an additional 10Kg's of baggage allowance before hand (at a decent fee, versus the price per kg at the gate), only to find that our bags were just breaking 20kgs. The piece of mind was still nice however.

After the bags were checked and we had our passes, we proceeded to go through security. Just as we were joining the line, we got cut off by a father and his 3 kids, all carrying some of his bags on a trolley. He wasn't able to take the trolley any further, as pointed out by his son, and so he held up the line a bit while he got him and his family sorted.

After security came Immigration. When you enter japan they staple a pass in your passport which they need to see on your way out; if you don't have it, or you lose it, you can fill another one out. Some poor sod at the front of the line hadn't figured this out and was frantically running between the line and the immigration desk trying to get it sorted. With the 4 planes worth of people, lined equally, we all knew we were going to get in eventually, it was just a matter of time. However, one self-important person in front of us in line felt the need to heckle the guy getting his paperwork together. The disorganised guy eventually went through and the heckler had his turn at the desk, and proceeded to dig into the immigration officer about why he was keeping up the line, a somewhat ironic act. Some people. Anyway, we eventually cleared immigration, and on our way to our gate, I stopped off at a Duty Free store to purchase some of the delicious Japanese whiskey at a steal of a price in comparison to Dan Murphy's - The Yamazaki 12 Year.

We waited at the gate for about 40 minutes, before we started to board. It was a packed flight, but somehow we managed to be some of the first on the plane. This allowed us to get seated and sorted with our bags before the rush of a tour group joined us down the back. For this flight, we'd remembered to pack our USB cords for our phones, so we were able to charge them all flight. Because we weren't going to be losing any charge, we instantly took to Fruit Ninja, and this continued for much of the first part of the flight, apart from a break to do the crossword in our magazine.

The flight was... well, rough. It had lots of small to medium bumps all the way through, and they were welcomed with some of the roughest turbulence that I've ever experienced, and it genuinely felt like the plane was going down for a good 10 seconds, before the pilot directed us out of the path. Needless to say, Adelaide and I had a pretty sleep deprived night, both only managing to doze for no more than 20 minutes before being woken back up again by a particularly bouncy section. Towards the end of the flight, I noticed some lightning underneath us, and realised we must've been dodging many of the thunderstorms on our route, hence why we had such a turbulent ride.

Our approach into Cairns was a little unnerving too, as it was pitch black until the last 30 seconds when the street lights started coming into view. It had been raining quite heavily, which cut visibility down even more. Uninterrupted by this though, the plane landed smoothly, and Adelaide and I were thankful for being on hard ground once more. Disembarking, we were met with a big gust of humid cairns air at 5am, welcoming us back to the land down under.

Customs and Immigration took a little while given the number of people on the plane, and I think the officers did a good job of managing the many tourists who where on it, as some seemed to completely ignore signs and were wandering all over the place. Utilising the self service check in was quite nice, and made immigration a breeze - just a passport scan and a quick photo and we were let through.

Luckily, my bag was on the carousell so we managed to pick it up, and soon after Adelaide's came out confusingly on a different one. We left the baggage claim and found my uncle Julian waiting for us outside. Our next flight from Cairns to Brisbane wasn't until 10am, so Julian and Ann had offered to pick us up for the morning.

Returning to Julian and Ann's house, we gave Adelaide a quick tour of cairns, before meeting Riley, Julian and Ann's new dog once we arrived home. He full of beans and very playful, and despite our sleepiness, we were happy to see him. My grandparents turned up soon after, and Julian cooked us all a breakfast of sausages, eggs, bacon, garlic mushrooms and hash-browns, definitely needed after the lack of food we had on Jetstar.

Afterwards, Adelaide took a nap on the couch while I showed my grandparents some photos of our trip, but wasn't able to get through all of them as we needed to head back to the airport to check in again. We repacked our bags, losing our warm gear, and changing into much more suitable clothes for Australia, before Ann drove us back out to the airport as Julian had a meeting.

When we got to the Airport we were a little concerned for time, so Ann just dropped us and went, and we were able to quickly get to the Qantas desk, where we checked our bags. I was a little unsure if they would let me take the duty free I'd bought at Osaka and Cairns on the plane, but domestic flights are far more relaxed, and the attendant told me it'd be fine.

Checking through security, we found Gate 20, and had a short 10 minute wait before it opened up. QF709 was a much smaller Boeing 737-800, and there was a smattering of empty seats, in particular one next to us which was nice. By this stage, the rain had picked up a bit, but it didn't delay our departure. We left on time, and flew through the clouds, soon breaking above them. Adelaide was still tired, and so she started to doze after we got our morning tea of a White Chocolate and Cranberry cookie, and I got a coffee. Thanks to the free in flight entertainment, I watched a 'How It's Made', and two episodes of 'Top Gear', while Adelaide fell asleep across my lap, and had a solid sleep for the entire flight.

Just before our approach into Brisbane, the captain informed us we'd been too quick, and that we needed to slow down, so we had an impressive wide descent into Brisbane Airport, with only a small layer of broken clouds to pass through. With a smooth landing we were back home! Leaving our plane, we weren't sure if we were going to see Mum and Dad out at the gate, but when we were not greeted with cheers, we headed down to the baggage claim, where we ran into them there. Somehow again, my bag was one of the first out, before Adelaide's took it's time to appear. We dropped Addy home to her parents before we made it back to ours after stopping for a decent cuppa coffee.

Home

Overall, Japan has been an incredible experience that Adelaide and I will not forget. It's been the first big trip we've shared overseas and it's been an absolute blast. As with all holidays, it's a shame that it couldn't have kept going forever, trading cities and sights every few days, and we could've easily spent so much more time at each of our destinations. Japan has a lovely culture, and I know that I will return there one day, once again.

...And to everyone who has read this far, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Edit: PS, We did end up seeing some ninja memorabilia, but no actual ninjas :( We'll have to return one day and do an even better hunt!