[Kirk in normal font. Elaine in bold font.]
I just can't sleep. Woke up at 3:45 again.
Osaka is not a coffee town!!! Limited shops open early… like Starbucks. And most, when open, serve only coffee, no espresso - whoa, I feel so out of place.
Tried to be organized about shipping our luggage. But the paper and digital forms are only available in Japanese which is ok with Google Translate but the address needed to be entered in Japanese … not so easy. In the end the Yamato Transport counter person ended up filling the form for us again with the help of, yup you guessed it, Google Translate.
The good thing is we could get overnight delivery to Tokyo - so thankful that we only have to pack for a couple days and not four or five.
The plan for this leg was to fill out the luggage transport paperwork with the Yamato Transport help, go back to hotel to pack suitcases and carry-ons for Nikko, walk around and be tourists, then come back to hotel to grab luggage and drop off for shipping to Tokyo before office closed for the day.
Just wandering around Osaka today. I'm behind on a few days of writing. But, trying to catch up. Mostly just photos.
To recap our itenary, landed in Tokyo at night. First three nights in Kyoto. Next two nights in Osaka. One night in Nikko. Two days in Tokyo on the eastside. Four nights in Tokyo on the westside.
When we landed, we tried to have our luggage forwarded to Kyoto, but they couldn't guarantee that it would get there in three days. So, we had it sent to Osaka. And, we had to unpack from the big suitcases and repack a carry-on and backpacks with three days worth of clothes and toiletries for Kyoto.
Once we got to Osaka, we figured it would also take three days to get the luggage to Tokyo. So, we went to the Yamato Transport (luggage forwarding service) near our hotel to get info. They didn't speak English, but this guy was soooo helpful and patient. It took us a really long time, but together we managed to fill out the paperwork for our bags, and that would streamline our process for when we dropped our bags off later. And, he said, they can deliver the bags from Osaka to Tokyo overnight. Wow.
Went into a Portland-themed bakery. Even had Burnside mugs.
Reference to Portland again! Japanese folks love that place. Today we went to a bakery called PDC - Portland Donut Company. The coffee was good. We probably should have tried the in-house made donuts instead of the packaged pastries.
Side note: in one of the first stores that Kirk went into there were coats from Beaverton, Oregon - interesting find.
Long line to buy tickets for live music. Lineup went around the block.
Kali was interested in checking out a few clothing stores in the neighbourhood while Kirk decided to hit the pinball arcade.
Handheld 1/10 second. The little Ricoh GR III is pretty good for this.
Headed over to Shinsekai to check out the Tsutenkaku Tower. The area had an aged amusement park feel. With midway games to win prizes.
Kirk and the kids tried their hand at archery.
There weren’t a lot of choices for eating. The few that weren’t super crowded were stand up restaurants. We ended up having ramen for lunch.
We ended up walking over to Den Den. It seems to be like a mini Akihabara. Lots of gaming centres, claw machines, toys, models, manga, otaku type stuff.
There was a lot of stuff for Laid Back Camp, Bocci the Rock and Spy x Family. Anime that I love. There was a lot of idol game fan stuff for Kali but everything she wanted was sold out :(
There was a lot to look at. Didn't buy anything because I was holding out for Akihabara. Hopefully I didn't make a mistake. I am notorious for missing out on purchases because I am too slow to act. We've learned our lesson with Kirk and have gotten to the motto: if you see something you like and you want it, just buy it otherwise you will regret it later - and I will have to suffer the consequences of listening to all the lamenting...
Some point during our walk-about in Den Den Kyle lost his Pasmo card. Yikes. Can only get them at the airport, or so I thought. After some online searching we realized we could get a replacement at some metro stations. Because Pasmo and Suica no longer sold physical IC cards at stations, it was a concern, but fortunately Kirk brought along one of the Suica cards we had from an earlier trip that still worked!
Trying to find an info booth or a ticket station that knew about the visitor Pasmo cards was not easy. Near impossible. In the end we were told we could only get replacements in Tokyo so would need to wait for a few days.
After dropping our luggage off for shipping we wandered around Osaka to squeeze in our last few hours in the city.
Christmas light display at the Osaka mall. Some cool photo taking by Kirk.
Orange Street.
Osaka was the first city that Kyle went off on his own for a bit. He wandered around the market areas, exploring and taking photos. He met up with us for dinner.
Osaka was a nice stop over. Wish it was a little less busy so we could experience more of the food offerings, but that was just not meant to be.
Kirk and Kali liked Osaka over Kyoto - more relaxed and lots of cooler dressed people. Kyle liked Kyoto over Osaka - couldn't really say why, just what he preferred. Me - probably liked Kyoto over Osaka as it was a little less busy.
Off to Nikko tomorrow.