Arrival

Sarah is the author of our opening blog entry. Ordinarily Alan would ave added his 2 cents worth but we've been travelling all day and we're very tired so it's just a short one for today.

 

Yes we have arrived! It has been a very long day (almost 20 hours and counting) and really there isn't much to tell you. We managed to get ourselves up by 5am after not getting to bed until almost 1am. John arrived on time (yes, we think it is a miracle too) and thank you John for taking us to the airport.

 

Check-in took all of 5 minutes, through to customs and then it was just a matter of waiting. Boarded the plane with a few other people and was amazed at how empty it was.  We took off about 10 minutes late and arrived at the Gold Coast just a little late.  Then, which surprised us, they made us get off the plane.  A 5 minute walk to a construction zone (Gold Coast's EXCITING new airport is coming soon, or so the signage told us) which was no more than a tin shed full of Japanese passengers.  There was an extremely large group of Japanese students in uniform waiting to board the plane along with a heap other Japanese people.  By the time we were back on the plane, it was full.

 

A reasonably uneventful trip.  A little turbulance but it wasn't bad.  We caught up for the late takeoff and arrived in Osaka 25 minutes early.  Being on a flight to Japan with a lot of Japanese meant that there was only a handful of "foreigners" to go through immigration which took no more than 2 minutes each to have our fingerprints and photos taken.

 

Got our bags, was asked a question by customs as to what we palnned to do in Hiroshima, and out the door we went.  We lasted about 25 seconds before we had to stop and put on our jackets.  A very lovely fresh 11 degrees and getting colder by the second.  A visit to the train station office and although the Lonely Planet book said that we would be greeted by an English speaking person to exchange our train tickets, this was not the case.  A bit of pointing and waving and all was processed and before we knew it, we were on our way to Osaka.  I had printed out very good directions so we got off the train at Tennoji station to change trains but then found ourselves only slightly confused before a very nice Japanese male offered to help us and a few minutes later we were on the right train to Kyobashi station. Out of the station (Alan said lets go down the other end) found us at the top of a very long staircase (with the lift being at the end we had just left) and we were on the street corner looking at a map completely in Japanese.  I could see where we needed to go, just not sure how to get there and another Japanese man showed us where to go. A brisk 7 minute walk in the cool air and we were at the hotel.

 

The room is lovely and right now we wouldn't care if it was a box.  We are both so tired.  We even settled on McDonalds for dinner as it was just around the corner and now it is about 2 degrees.  Time for sleep.