Oasaka's More than Ok.

A Tale of Two Journeys

Our airport journeys were a bit of a mix as we left Seoul today. We caught a bus from the hotel which took us directly to our terminal, a nice budget option

Getting off the plane after filling 2 forms and 3 different entry checks, we decided to get a taxi to the hotel. Karen's brief research suggested about £50 unfortunately this was outdated and the taxi cost just over a £100 it was a decent distance and an official taxi so not a rogue taxi driver. Looking online afterwards that was the current cost. It made the trip easy but a bit of a budget breaker.

When In Japan...

In the evening we found a craft beer bar and had the classic Japanese dish of fish and chips. The beer was great, it was a pour your own place and lots of really nice local bee

Observing Osaka

The next day we had a walking tour of Osaka, as we weren't meeting the group until 6pm. As you'd expect from an Osaka tour the guide was American, now Japanese citizen! However it was decent tour concentrating on the city centre. The centre is loud and colourful a real attack of the senses

It did give us the opportunity of trying out the subway and that seemed very easy to buy tickets and navigate. For lunch we went into a Japanese restaurant recommended by the guide the food was excellent and 3 empty plates.

Meeting the New Group

Meeting the rest of the group was a bit of a shock, the meeting was chaos and far too long. The guide seemed to want to tell us about the whole tour and some of the other tour members just wanted to talk about their own travel plans. I hope my first impressions are wrong as otherwise may be an interesting tour. We excused ourselves from the evening walk and meal, as it was where we'd been earlier and headed off on our own for tea.

The place we wanted was shut but we saw an Italian nearby. It was Japanese run and the food was amazing.

We felt a bit antisocial not joining the main group but hopefully means we can start fresh tomorrow.