Arriving in Japan we were exhausted and after our long journey were ready (in need of) a bit of rest. Japanese customs seemed especially thorough checking repeatedly that we didn't have any marujuana or other substances. They asked me a few times about my relationship with Chris; 'was I travelling with him, were we together'? Then 'the boss' sauntered over, flipped over a translation book and pointed at some English words...' A sniffer dog responded to your bag coming off the plane. Come with me please...'
We were led into a back room where our bags were very politely emptied and we were both patted down. Chris was very obliging and showed them all the secret pockets of his wallet and bag...Not exactly the actions of someone carrying drugs! We had bought some cooking spice in India which they think may have alerted the dog. We also had our trekking gear washed in Pokhara before we left Nepal and it came back smelling of smoked ham...another smell that may have caused the dog to 'false positive' our bags.
Many apologies later we were on our way. I fell asleep on the train and over an hour later Chris woke me up and we had arrived. On arrival at our hotel we found out they had an onsite 'Onsen' or thermal bath which was just the best news ever...
Bathed, washed and relaxed we headed out for dinner and ended up at a cool little Japanese bar where 3 air hostesses from a Japanese airline were having dinner. The good news was they spoke English and helped us through the menu, they also stood up and cheered when we told them we were newly engaged which was lovely! The chef kept telling Chris he looked like the strong man at the circus which is kind of funny.
The next day we woke up and walked through the business district of Osaka to get to Osaka castle, which incidently is the most visited tourism attraction in the whole of Japan! Then we headed to the shopping district!
Shopping in Japan is so cool. All I can say is they have so so much stuff that I did not know even existed. Umbrella's have umbrella handle covers, they have digital business card readers and more sushi and fruit key rings than I had expected. In the golfing shops (which are plentiful) they have hundreds of club head covers, flashing golf tee's (which actually seems like a sensible idea) and Uniquo has an entire floor in most department stores. There are sushi socks, entire department store complexs for electrical goods, and an entire floor of the massive department store for calligraphy, origami and stationary, the likes of which I have never seen before.
After building up an appetite we stumbled upon an amazing sushi, sashimi, tempura, etc (basically everything Japanese), 'all you can eat' buffet. Chris thinks I eat too much, but when you can have all the sashimi that you want for 2000 yen (£12), do the words 'too much' really exist?
A great start to Japan, the next morning we got up and headed to Osaka main station to get the JR line to Kyoto.
No comments:
Post a Comment