Travel day. This is where I head out from Tokyo to Osaka. Of course, it also turns out to be the first completely sunny day I’ve seen since I’ve got here. I clean up and leave Teman’s house before they get up. I get a ticket on the next available shinkansen but screw up and miss it since I had the track wrong. I just go get another ticket and let them know and it turns out I only have to wait another 10-15 minutes for the next one.
The JR rail pass doesn’t let you ride the fastest shinkansen, the nozomi, but the ride still only takes about 3 hours from Tokyo station to Shin-Osaka station. When they put the shinkansen lines in they often had to put in new stations, thus the shin- prefix. From there I had to transfer to another JR line going downtown and then transfer again to
pick up the JR loop line which puts me just a short walk from my hotel, The New Otani Osaka.
Now that I’ve been away from Tokyo several times I’ve come to realize how easy I had it. Most trains and subways, with the exception of the shinkansen, there is no english announcement. There is no status indicator as to where you are at. You have to pay attention. Usually at least one door on the train has a dual-language map of the stops but often most of the maps around the station don’t have english on them. You also run into the different level of service (express/local) more often and have to pay attention to the map as to which ones will stop at the stop you want. I’ve run into subway fare maps now that have not a lick of romaji on them. Its not really that difficult, you just need to be a bit more prepared and be willing to spend a little bit more time hunting around for that one map that has the information you need.
My hotel is in a pretty sweet spot, just across from Osaka-jo and the giant park that surrounds it. Its pretty upscale, almost too upscale for me. Check-in is a breeze, everybody speaks pretty good english including the bellhop who they have walk me through the features of my room.
There are a number of restaurants in the hotel but they are all a bit too upscale for me. Instead I head over to a local shopping area and pick up some squid and pork yakisoba and a frosty cold nama birru. mmmm.