My first stop in Japan was a success – meaning I landed safely, got to my hostel in one piece, managed to get enough money for the next few days, and wandered around for a little bit. I rented an LTE WiFi hotspot for about 6000 yen so I have internet access pretty much everywhere now, which is a big difference from last last several trips here where I had to rely on remembering where my routes were, research things to eat & places to go before I left my apartment, and did nothing but stare out the window on the train rides. Now I can be just as anti-social and technology immersed as I am in the US. Plus this thing gets up to 40 Mbps D/L speeds so far.
The plane ride over was nice since I snagged the emergency exit row on the HNL-KIX flight. Delta definitely stepped up their plane game though; the new entertainment systems have capacitive touch screens, HD format and a HUGE selection of movies/shows (easily 5-6 times as much as before). Their new 767s for the LAX-HNL flight were pretty nice as well. There was a good 5 minutes of crazy turbulence a few hours in, where we felt the plane shudder hard, drop multiple times and start shifting left/right. It was probably the most shaken I’ve been in a plane.
I landed in Kansai and got my rail pass voucher exchanged, took the train in to Fukushima where the j-Hoppers hostel was, and checked in / dropped off my pack. I definitely feel overpacked but the weight of my pack isn’t too bad; it’s feeling bulky by volume though. Part of me wishes I had just used a suitcase, until I woke up this morning and it was pouring outside and I was glad I didn’t have to roll anything around as I ran to the train station. It is definitely more inconvenient to get things in/out of since it’s a top-loading pack, though.
The first thing I wanted to eat in Osaka was okonomiyaki. Since i hadn’t been here since 2004 I also wanted to visit the Namba area, one of the areas that everyone goes to and recognizes because of its bright signs:
I spent a bit of time trying to find a good okonomiyaki place in Namba online and finally settled on one above the JR station. I was definitely not disappointed. I ended up getting modanyaki (okonomiyaki + yakisoba noodles mixed in it) and it was the traditional cooked-in-front-of-you type, so I watched it cook for about 20 minutes. It was delicious, as good as I remembered having it somewhere in Kyoto way long ago, and better than what I’ve had recently in LA.
After eating I wandered around Namba a bit just to take in the city sights. Jetlag started to hit me around 10pm so I took the train back to the hostel, washed up and went to sleep. I shared my room with 2 tourists from Buenos Aires but they were sleeping when I got back and when I woke up & left this morning. I found this on the roof deck:
This morning I woke up, packed up again, went through the pouring rain to the station, bought my Shinkansen ticket to Hakata (Fukuoka), grabbed a tuna onigiri and a tonkatsu sandwich and hopped on the train, which I’m on now watching the cities go by in a blur.
Now I need to figure out what I’m going to see in Fukuoka, aside from eating real Hakata ramen.
