Japan - Day 3

This morning we were rudely awoken at 5:30am by someone (who was probably drunk and confused) ringing our bell and trying to get into our room. We ignored them and managed to get another 3 hours sleep. We walked over to a convenience store to get some breakfast and ate it back in our room.

At about 10 we took the train back to the airport where we collected our Japan Rail Passes and made reservations for all of train travel between cities. I had put together details of the exact trains we wanted in advance. This turned out to be an excellent idea as I was just able to hand over the details and let the woman behind the counter go to work. It was a quick and pleasant experience and within minutes we were ready for our first Japanese sightseeing.

Kansai International Airport is located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay. Just over the bridge from the airport is Rinku Town, which is an area constructed on reclaimed land in the 1990's. Exiting the station was like walking into a ghost town. There were plenty of buildings around, but very few people. We like things quiet so enjoyed a nice little walk to Rinku Park, a recreational area on the waterfront. After relaxing there for a while we headed over to the main attraction in Rinku Town - the outlet mall. The mall was also a bit of a ghost town, but was chock full of beautiful shops full of beautiful things and pleasant staff. I don't know what the normal prices for things are in Japan yet, but this place was super cheap compared with NZ. It was shopping heaven, so it's probably a very good thing that we only bought small suitcases over with us. About 5 years ago I bought the most perfect pair of Nike sneakers in Vancouver, and have been looking for a replacement pair for quite some time now as these ones are getting a bit old and worn. I've never been able to find the same style in NZ, and on a holiday to Singapore went into every Nike store I came across but they never had them in my size. But today, when I walked into the big Nike store in Rinku Town I found a whole big section of the exact shoes I was after....and they were cheap too. I immediately snapped up a pair, and feel very pleased with myself. Our trip to Rinku Town did a lot to highlight the size difference between us and the Japanese. My shoes were the biggest size they had, and the jeans Shanon got from GAP were the second largest size available. Can you believe skinny Shanon is actually big in Japan? Bizarre! On our way back to the station we stopped briefly in an electronics/appliance/toy store, where our minds were officially blown. It was incredible, and contained everything you could possibly want from such a store. For example, there was a whole aisle completely dedicated to computer mouses of many different styles and colours. I'm sure any Japanese person who visits NZ and wanders into a Noel Leeming must leave very disappointed.

We took the train back to Izumisano and headed straight to Mos Burger. It was already about 3pm by this stage and we were starving. It's very easy to buy fast food in Japan as the staff are very patient and there are picture menus on the counter which you can point to if you need to. As we were sitting in Mos Burger we watched the server run out after some customers as they were leaving, and bow deeply in their direction as they walked away. Imagine if servers in fast food restaurants did that at home! You'd think they'd lost the plot!

We had a fairly quiet evening, including at least an hour sitting next to our large windows soaking in the view as the sun set, and a dinner where all the kitchen staff yelled out thank you as we left. On our way back from dinner we bought some little tubs of ice-cream, but when we got back to our room we realised that we had no spoons. Shanon came up with the ideal solution - we ate our ice-cream with the ends of the free toothbrushes in the bathroom!

Toothbrush icecream - my hair is wet as we'd just been in the rain