The morning started with us packing up and ready to check out. As planned we had our cases out in the hallway when we knocked on Neil’s as scheduled at just gone 9.30am. He wasn’t ready. In fact it was about 20 minutes later he finally met us down in Reception. We then started the 15 minute walk to Namba Station dragging our cases behind us. Once there we purchased our tickets to Shin-Osaka on the Metro line and via Escalator & Lift made our way down to the platform. The journey was relatively smooth although we couldn’t find the lifts back up to the Shinkansen station and so Neil & I had lug the cases up some series of steps. We then went to get the bullet train tickets to Tokyo.
At least there were no arguments or blame being apportioned. I can absolutely remembering having the passes and we think one of them may have slipped down behind the desk in Hotel. I must have seen there were 2 passes and wrongly assumed that Neil must have had his. All very annoying as the 14 day passes for Karen & I had cost over £300 each and were not replaceable. My only consolation was that we had probably already had that value out of the lost one.
We then had more fun trying to locate the correct subway to get us to our Hotel and with a lengthy walk the other end it was 3.50pm before we were able to check in the Hotel. A quick refresh in the room meant that at 4.30pm we were outside again but realised by now it was too late to go to the Temple we had planned to visit as it closed at 5pm.
We went into a couple of shops. The first was a large electrical store selling everything you could possibly want and everything you possibly didn’t know you wanted. We had a wander around the toy area on the top floor and chuckled at things Japanese versions of things we recognised and wondered at the things we didn’t. Just inside the shop it was another sensory overload. A store we actually bought things at was Don Quijote which is the souvenir outlet shop. Just the 7 floors this time of stock piled floor to ceiling. We just bought some snacks for the next few days to keep us going. We were tempted by the vacuum sealed octopus to take back for Barry but weren’t sure we would be allowed to take through immigration. I was not also allowed by Neil to buy a face mask so I could fit in with the 20% of Japanese who wear them all the time. We have kind of got used to it now but it still seems strange, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt anyone.
Rather than walk back we decided to take the train, but finding the correct station took us longer than the journey itself. We then went back to the Hotel via the 711 opposite, stocking up on some some sandwiches for our excursion tomorrow.