Japan Visit 2010

Next on the trip is Osaka and at 12:03 on the dot the bullet train pulled out of Tokyo headed for Shin Osaka station. The staff are so polite and perform a little ceremony every time they enter and leave the carriage - can you imagine this happening back home??

Then right on schedule we pulled in to Shin Osaka at 15:03. The punctuality of the trains really is amazing - wish it was like this with Scotrail! The speed the train gets up to is amazing - we reckon at full speed we were doing 200mph. Unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't get to see Mount Fuji - maybe on the way back up.

It was a short trip on the subway to get to the hotel and I managed to navigate to it without too much hassle. I think I am definitely the better navigator, although Neil will dispute this!

The hotel is not as nice as the one in Toyko and is a little dated. There's lots of gold paint and chandelier. Still the room is a good size, it's clean and really central so we're not going to moan! It's above a department store called Takashimya and we took a wander through it to try and get a late lunch. As it's the spring holiday the place was so busy and noisy with everyone shouting out the bargains on offer - obviously we didn't understand a word! We ended up in the food hall and picked up some sushi and headed back to the hotel.

After a snooze it was time to try and find somewhere for dinner. This in itself was a challenge and we nearly ended up in McDonalds!! Very few places have menus in English. It wouldn't have been so bad if they had picture menus - at least we could have pointed to things! This was a bit of a low and was beginning to regret leaving Tokyo! We finally found a wee Chinese restaurant and the food was lovely.

First impressions of Osaka is that it's not as "western" friendly as Tokyo but I'm sure it will all look better in the morning when we can find out way about in daylight!!