Day five of our trip saw us up disgustingly early to check-out of the hotel by 10am, followed by a quick breakfast in the Starbucks beneath our hotel before we dragged our suitcases back through Gion to hop on a local subway train that would take us from Kyoto to Osaka in about 45 minutes, costing us roughly three dollars for the trip. It would have been both faster and cheaper to get the Shinkansen, though we really couldn’t be bothered to make it all the way back to Kyoto station with our suitcases (which also required changing trains) in order to catch it, so we got the subway instead.




Sally in Starbucks at breakfast.

Let me tell you now that cramming three large suitcases, two hefty carry-on bags and three people into one tiny set of four opposing seats is a very interesting experience in itself, and certainly not my preferred way of travelling. Unfortunately it was the best we could do given that we’d already paid for our ticket and so we passed the time by listening to music (in Sally’s case) and various Dane Cook skits (in Nat’s and mine) whilst watching the scenery change yet again and more of Japan zipped by outside the train.




Doesn’t she look comfortable?




Nat and I clearly got the better part of the deal here.

Nearly an hour later, we hauled ourselves off the train at Umeda station in Osaka, and proceeded to get somewhat lost in the massive station complex, which wound up with me finally putting my Japanese to use and asking a near-by lady where the line we needed to catch was. She pointed us in the right direction with a few well meaning hand-gestures and a conveniently placed map, so a short while later we popped out of Nakatsu station and began the normally unpleasant experience of trying to find our hotel.

Fortunately, our map was somewhat to scale this time around and we rounded the corner near the station, only to see the name of our hotel printed in giant katakana on the side of a building about two blocks away, which was definitely a relief seeing as it meant that we didn’t have to bother the locals with our frantic flailing/pointing and pitiful use of the Japanese language. We checked into the hotel easy enough once we’d hauled our bags two blocks down (narrowly avoiding the swarms of rogue people on bicycles as we went) and then spent a short while checking out and photographing the hotel room as had become custom, before heading out to find some lunch.




Hotel room in Osaka… and Nat getting my way.




Sally trying to open the window because the room reeked of cigarette smoke.

We caught the train yet again and made our way to Shin-Osaka, before jumping on another train for a couple of stops that took us into the heart of Osaka itself. Food was forgotten temporarily when Sally directed us to a Black Peace Now store, where she and Nat did some more excessive spending, whilst I stood there holding their stuff and roughly translating what the friendly store manager was saying to us. I have to be honest and say that it was not particularly fun, since I fell in love with this polka-dot skirt in the store, which probably wouldn’t have even fit one of my legs. I ended up getting very upset, though it only burst out after we left the store and I embarrassed myself in the near-by café that we hit for lunch by totally confusing the poor staff member and myself with my lack-of skill in Japanese. Granted, I probably wasn’t paying much attention given that I was trying not to cry by this point and refused to eat since I felt horribly fat, but whatever. Tears were shed and much smoke was inhaled when we accidentally planted ourselves in the smoking section of said café. Whoops.




Our first view of central Osaka after leaving the subway area.




Giant Christmas tree of lights~ And the KERA store is up there.

Unfortunately for me though, this wasn’t quite the end of our shopping excursion. From Black Peace Now, we moved on to the KERA store (again depressing, though slightly consoled by the fact I managed to purchase Alice Nine’s new album the day it was released from a near-by CD store) and then to Algon Quins, which would also have been depressing if it weren’t for the insanely hyperactive sales assistant that stalked us through the store. She tagged along behind us, giggling like a hyena and magically producing a matching garment to everything Sally and I paused to look at whilst Nat was trying on clothes. She was super friendly, and I kid you not, but she bounced. It was kind of scary, if not amusing from my point of view since I got to watch Sally twitch every time the girl giggled, which was at least every second minute or so. I did manage to hold a broken conversation with her and one of the other girl’s when they asked what CD I had bought, which was kind of cool.

It was almost dark by the time we left the store, though we weren’t ready to head back to the hotel just yet. Instead, we went off in search of a h.NAOTO store (which turned out to be gouk. instead) and another store (Putumayo maybe?), which was unfortunately closed, so we found somewhere local to eat a quick dinner before deciding to return to the hotel. On the way though, we found another CD store and paused to buy magazines and cheap, second-hand Jrock CDs before we then stumbled across another cool-looking clothing store, where we browsed for a while before hitting the road once again. I really regret not trying anything on in that store though, since unlike most of the other places we had been throughout the day, they actually had clothes with SIZES that I might have fit if I weren’t took depressed and tired to bother trying.




Heading back towards our hotel, with Osaka all lit up!

Back in the hotel, we amused ourselves for a while by watching Nat try and fit his purchases of the day back into his suitcase, before we decided we needed to hit up a convenience store… and we did it with great enthusiasm.




Epic shopping was not so epic for me.




Nat, on the other hand…




And Sally too, counting up her loose change for our convenience store run.

For some reason (I still don’t even know why) we decided to go to every single convenience store we could find in the area, which was probably about five or six different ones. We eventually found the junk we’d been looking for and wandered back to the hotel for sleep.