Posted by Chris
Well it's the final day in Japan and we have a long journey ahead of us today. Checking out of the hotel we grabbed the usual "am/pm" (7-eleven) breakfast and trekked to the train station. As has also become the trend, we visited Starbucks. Even though I hate them as an American company, it's about the only place that serves passable coffee in this country. We caught the train to Tokyo station (yes during the tail end of rush-hour and carrying bags and coffees - not sure a good idea in hindsight) and found a locker to stash our bags. For only 500 Yen for as long as you like it was a great deal! We walked down the road to the Imperial Palace grounds, still carrying the empty coffee cups - for a country so clean, they certainly don't believe in rubbish bins. Walking around the Imperial Palace grounds, we had a peek at the imperial bridge, before strolling through the imperial gardens. By this time it was getting on to midday, so we found the closest subway and caught the metro one stop back to Tokyo station. This whole trip has been made so much easier thanks to WikiTravel, my flashy new phone and the iTravel Android application . Almost everything we have done in Tokyo has been from following the two itineraries on here: <<<(?)>>>. The compass and GPS navigation has also been a godsend (when they work properly).
It was quite a mission to find our locker again (Tokyo station is huge), but we eventually did and we punched in our coupon number to retrieve our bags. We grabbed a few sushi bento boxes and boarded the Hikari train back to Shin-Osaka. This time we watched "Hot Tub Time Machine" on the laptop but unfortunately still didn't see Mt Fuji. I think because of clouds (or maybe the movie). In Shin-Osaka we had a quick bite of gyoza and transferred to another train for Osaka. We had anther minor train disaster here becuase it was a very long trip to the airport. We boarded a train that said "airport" on it, only to have it terminate at a station on the loop line. We found a new train that was really going to the airport and boarded that, only to find out it was going to two completely different destinations. I was very confused as to what was going on, but then the scrolling display said "at stop hanachi (?) cars 1-4 are going to the airport, and cars 5-8 are going to somewhere called Wanachi". Of course we were in the very end of car 8 and the train was too packed to move through. Very very slowly we were able to make our way to car 4 over the course of about 6 stations. Finally we arrived at the airport and we were right on time - almost exactly 2 hours before the flight was due to leave. I have no doubt there is an express train between the airport and Osaka which I will have to investigate for next time. So here we are back on povo JetStar bound for the Gold Coast and home again to see Kimba who Danae has been missing heaps. Japan was awesome and I think we spent a good amount of time everywhere we went. If we had more time and friends, it would have been great to get into the nightlife - however there is nothing else extra that I wish we had done.
Till next holiday! Love Danae and Chris xoxox
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