Skip to main content

A long flight

Dotombori Street in Osaka is lined with advertisements for Jetstar's service between here and Sydney. So how was the flight? Pretty good overall, though the air was a little stuffy for my liking.

We pushed back a little late and we stuck behind an Air China flight and a Qantas 767 decked out in the Wallabies Rugby Union World Cup Supporters' livery. B fell asleep and didn't awake until we were well into the air.

The Airbus 330-200 turned south, taking us over our local suburbs. The cabin crew handed out the amenities pack. I had preordered one for B and she needed the black blanket to keep warm in the cabin. I found the inflatable neck pillow quite comfortable for head support while staring out the window.

The black leather seats were fairly comfortable, but I think the blue armrests had been inherited from somewhere else. My earphone jack didn't work, so I couldn't listen to the inflight entertainments: Spiderman 3 and TV shows.

We had also prepaid for a portable entertainment unit and received on of the newer models. Great screen but as heavy as a brick! The movie selection was pretty old, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 being the latest movie. We shared the unit and both watched Anchorman. They also had some movie music and listening to a track from John Williams' Memoirs of a Geisha was a nice treat.

Part of the reason I developed a huge headache was probably because I spent so much time staring out the window, sunglare reflected off the engine. I saw the squares of farmland, the pale blue of coral reefs off the Queensland coast. The pilots did a fantastic job of steering us through the man storm clouds in our path; this was the smoothest flight north that I have flown on.

B brought some sushi along from the airport, while I had prepaid for meals. Lunch was beef noodles in five flavour sauce, a stale bread roll and potato salad, with a chocolate to the side. The noodles were tasty. By 8pm I was in no state to eat the other snack, a frittata. The Weis Bar was nice though!

The landing seemed to take an eternity, cruising over bright city and fishing vessel lights through an otherwise black landscape. We exited quickly out of Kansai International Airport and snagged some tickets on the Nankai Rapi:t Express train minutes before it was due to depart. This is a fantastical design with a front like Darth Vader, retro round windows and leopard print seats. Oh, and it cost 1380 Yen, about A$14. That's for a reserved seat in an airconditioned express train with luggage storage. As opposed to our $14 CityRail ticket from Padstow to the International Airport in a packed all stations commuter train. And yes, this was a private line.

The streets of humid Osaka were still alive with young people chatting, skateboarding and riding bikes. The ugg boots we spotted on a girl may seem strange in the heat, but then most of the others looked very wobbly in their high heels.

We dropped off our bags at the hotel, then returned to Dotombori Street for a late dinner of very tasty udon, then walked back along the river to the hotel. Ahh, the hotel! It projects an air of cool, all reds and blacks. Our room is black and white, with a huge LCD TV and the best bathroom so far. It has a deep bath and a proper Japanese pre-bath showering facility with stool and bowl for pouring the oh-so-hot water over the body, to clean yourself before bathing. And the supplied soap and shampoo is so very good. Oh, and the toilet requires an instruction manual!


Now it's time to begin exploring!
Labels:

Comments

pen.dca.mel said…
That's an awesome looking train!

pen.dca.mel
11 September 2007 at 13:30
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Kamioka mines: from silver to supernovas

Part of the Kamioka zinc mining and smelter complex Just after posting about the Kamioka Railway another photo from that 2006 set piqued my interest. Up there in the mountains the landscape looked blasted not just by winter but by something more. It was the kind of lonely place where you would not expect to find major industry, so this sight was quite surprising. Even more surprising is the history associated with this photo. According to some sources mining and refining of ores in Kamioka dates back to 710 AD  and only closed in 2001. Undoubtedly the mine was a major reason for the existence of the Kamioka Railway. Refining of zinc still continues to this day under the parent Mitsui Kenzoku zaibatsu . Gold, silver, copper, zinc and lead were all dug out of the rock here. Unfortunately, the process released cadmium into the river, which, when taken up by the rice that was grown in the river, caused the terrible itai-itai disease  - meaning "It hurts! It hurts". Cadm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...
Post a Comment
Read more

To Melbourne on the XPT sleeper

Excited by the prospect of reliving the experience of seeing my very first movie and hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform it I bought tickets to The Empire Strikes Back in Concert in Melbourne back in February. Then I did nothing about actually getting there. Much as I love Melbourne, due to family commitments I didn't want to spend more than the Sunday away. Flights there and back made sense, but  my flight down to Melbourne in late October reiterated the fact that I usually don't enjoy descending into the city. And the concert was in December, a season of summer storms. I really didn't feel like driving the whole route alone and in a hurry, so that left one choice. The train. My very first trip up to Sydney from Melbourne was aboard the luxury Southern Aurora. Or it was supposed to be luxury. I wouldn't know because I spent the whole ride up very sick with the flu lying in the top bunk, unable to stay awake for my whole of night vigil. Now only...
Post a Comment
Read more