Japan Trip Part 3 - More Osaka

On September 26th, Saturday, we spent a full day in Osaka. Randy and Curtis have been waiting impatiently for weeks to go to the 'World's biggest pokemon store' at Osaka City Station ever since I found out it was there. Osaka City Station is a pretty new mall (I think .... it wasn't there the last time I went to Osaka, which was maybe 5 years ago?) on top of the JR Osaka Station.

There is a big department store called Daimaru (大丸 - Hey whatever happened to the one in Hong Kong?), and the Pokemon Store is on the 13th floor of Daimaru. Before that though, we have to walk through the 'trap' of Tokyu Hands located on the 10th-12th(?) floor? I called Tokyu Hands a trap because with all the cute pens, stationery, toys, and lunch boxes, it was very hard to get away from without leaving a pile of cash. We will end up at Tokyu Hands again in Tokyo, but actually I think the one in Osaka is newer and nicer.

 Obviously this is where you can get
the newest pokemon cards. 

 


Finally we made it to the Pokemon store. It was not big at all, and was packed. It was full of kids and adults probably downloading and trading characters (capturing Pokemons maybe? Who knows.). That only works if you have a Japanese version of the game, so Randy and Curtis just walked around peaking at what everyone else was doing. Being in Pokemon heaven, we did stay around for an hour, and we got some new Pokemon cards and toys from the Pokemon capsule station.

Pokemon merchandise

Ahhh, capsule station, and it brings us to our next destination. Across the street from the train station, there is a huge store called Yodobashi that cannot be missed. It turns out to be a huge electronics store. When we first walked in, we saw rows and rows of electronics and sale signs - razors, printers, cell phones - in other words, nothing fun. We decided to take the escalator to the 2nd (or 3rd? I forgot) floor, and on our right was the largest capsule station section we have ever seen.

Capsule stations (扭蛋机) are these little vending machines where you put in a coin, turn a knob, and out comes a toy inside a plastic egg. The toys that you can get are pretty cool, and on the front of the machine you can see all the styles made. Of course you hope to get the one cool one, and when you don't, it can get addictive. And like comic books and Pokemon, half the people wandering and putting money in are adults. I was tempted.


Anyway, yes the place was pretty huge, and there were maybe 20-30 rows of machines there.We were again trapped on this floor for over half and hour. Afterwards we made it through the remaining floors in Yodobashi. In addition to electronics, there is also a toys section and some cute stores. The good thing about all Japanese department stores is that on the top floor, there are usually at least 10 (sometimes 50 or more!) decent restaurants on the top floor of the department store.  So when we got to the top floor, we got some habachi lunch.

Japan Trip Part 2 - Osaka

We are really behind on our blog! We just returned from a trip to Xian, and we barely started writing about Japan!

Anyway, so we last left off with us finally flying to Japan. After a longer than necessary flight (Probably got stuck on the runway for an hour), we arrived Osaka at the Kansai Airport (关西机场）. But we still needed to get to the hotel, which would be another hour of travel. I was exhausted by the time I got to the hotel, so below is the directions on how to get to the hotel, and hopefully it'll be easier next time.

Randy, Curtis and our friends Eli and Finn on the JR Train

From the airport, we took the JR Kansai train to Tennoji （天王寺)by limited express Haruka, which took around 40 minutes. Our friends were going directly to Nara, so that was where they switched trains to the JR Nara line. Our hotel was at the Osaka Station, so at Tennoji we had to switch to another line that goes around the loop. Most of the trains would stop at Osaka, but I was confused and wandered around the terminal for a while before finally taking the dedicated loop train. From Tenoji to Osaka it was approximately another 30 minute (maybe shorter, but it felt like a looong ride. I was just starving at that point), but I suspect it was because we took a local train that stopped at every stop.

The hotel we chose to stay at was Hotel Monterey Osaka: http://www.hotelmonterey.co.jp  It was pretty nice, designed after the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna. Well all I can say is that the hotel was very yellowish, just like the Schonbrunn.  I expected a very small hotel room, but our triple room was spacious enough for us. The hotel was a little dated, but we paid around $200/night, and for the location I guess it was not bad. The hotel had an old fashioned elevator, and we stayed on the 13th floor, so it looked a little freaky when the hand reached 13.

Oh but I got ahead of myself. To get to the hotel was not easy. Lesson learned: print a map with the hotel on it next time.

After arriving at the Osaka station, we had to get out from the Sakurabashi Exit. We found the exit, but we could not find any escalators, so I had to drag all our heavy luggage up the stairs. And that was where the directions from the hotel stopped. Going straight seemed logical, so we went straight through a street of restaurants, called 梅三小路。After getting out from the other side of the restaurant street, take the first right and the first hotel on the left hand side is the Hearton Hotel. Keep walking, and the Hotel Monterey is next hotel.

Unfortunately my map of Osaka Station ended at the Hearton Hotel, so we wandered around the area for maybe 10 minutes before finding our hotel. The Hotel Monterey is actually just conveniently 5 minutes walk away from the JR and subway station, so we may stay there again in the future.

After check in, it was already 8pm. Having barely eaten anything, we gave up going to the Pokemon Store, and got dinner at 梅三小路. There were maybe 15 restaurants, all with delicious fake foods displays outside, and we finally decided to get tonkatsu. It was so good that Curtis would get tonkatsu for breakfast the following morning. Then I made the mistake of telling them that we need a variety in our meals. By the last day of our trip, I would be craving tonkatsu so bad, but the kids would tell me that "we've already had it and should not eat it again" and made us eat something else.

After dinner we took a walk around our neighborhood, Umeda (梅田）. It was Friday night, and the street was full of people going to little bars. Randy and Curtis went into the first arcade they have ever seen in Japan. Anyone who has been to Japan knows that the arcades are pretty crazy, where you can win anything from toys and giant boxes of Pockey sticks, to vacuum cleaners and GPS. The strangest thing we saw that night was a machine where you can win these cute fish. The fish were alive and swimming, and I'm not sure how they would feel if someone manages to grab them and drops them down the chute.

After watching some old guys battling on the dance dance revolution machine, we capped off the night after eating some crepes.

One guy is dancing on the machine, while another is just freestyling on the side. Pretty funny.

Japan Trip Part 1

We have done quite a bit of travelling since we moved to Beijing, and I really should write a little about the trips! Not only would we then remember what happened, I can try to avoid the travel mistakes we may have made. And if I ever travel to the same places again, maybe I don't have to research as much.

So last week we went to Japan. It was the National holiday 国庆 in China, and combined with the Moon Festival on Sunday, became an 8-day long holiday. It is the peak travel week, and there are many places you should avoid due to the crowds:
http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/182000-visitors-and-other-china-golden-week-records-419951

Photo taken from the Great Wall. Actually someone from the government came out to say that the Great Wall looked crowded only because of the 'camera angle'. Not sure what angle should've been used instead.

Anyway, so we decided to leave China and to avoid the crowds, and we chose to go to Japan. It turned out not to be the best timing because Japan and China decided to fight over the Fishing Island 钓鱼岛 again, as they seem to have been doing every 10 years or so. For over two weeks before the holiday, there were protests outside the Japanese Embassy in Bejing and other cities. In Bejing, streets around the Japanese Embassy were blocked and people were marching and throwing eggs at the Embassy for over two weeks. (Where do all these patriotic people come from? I really think most protesters show up for the free lunch) People are boycotting Japanese businesses, trashing Japanese cars, and I think even some Japanese car owners got beaten.

Most of the Chinese tour groups cancelled all trips to Japan. I didn't feel these political maneuvers have anything to do with tourists like us. But it did for our plane ride there. Probably because of all the flight cancellations, they cancelled our 8am flight altogether and we had to fit onto the 11am flight. Instead of sitting together, Randy, Curtis and I ended up with 2 middle and 1 aisle seats, none of which were together. I guess most Japanese businessmen would rather sit next to a whining child than to give up their window seat, so although Curtis and Randy ended up sitting next to each other, I could not sit with them. 

Looking sad next to the guy who won't give up his window seat.

But the plane ride was only 2 1/2 hours long, and soon we landed in Osaka.

Notes to self:
Plane tickets were booked on elong.com, since they take all the visa/master/AE/Discover cards. Plane tickets were 12650RMB for one adult and two kids (Japan is not cheap!)
We flew by China Air - or Air China? It was 中国国际航空公司
Beijing airport terminal 3 seems much prettier than terminal 1 and 2. 1 is domestic and probably the ugliest, and I think the only one with black taxis hanging outside the gate. However, terminal 3 is too big, and you have to walk a lot more than terminal 2, and I kind of hate taking a bus to board the plane, which we had to do.