Japan 2016 - Tokyo to Osaka

seeing that we had a long train ride to shin-osaka, and then transfer to osaka to get to our next lodging, we left kanda quite early on sunday. we had simple breakfast of eggs and toasts and quick showers all around. the walk to kanda station was very short and we took the jr line to tokyo station. i went to the jr office again to book the next available train to osaka. we got a lunchtime train which was just nice, as we can only check in after 4pm.

we had snacks before the train departed and bought more to have on board. amira would be a handful so having food for her would help a great deal. the train ride took over 2 hours. i should have remembered to look over to the right side of the train to catch a glimpse of mt. fuji as it was a clear and sunny day, something i hugely regret as it was gloomy the day we came back to tokyo.

we got to osaka station after 2pm and stopped by 7-11 to gobble down some rice balls. the boys wanted more than the 2 each that we bought but i told them we'd be having dinner soon. we took the midosuji line from shin-osaka to osaka station in the kita ward. it got pretty confusing herein after. osaka station is connected to umeda and higashi umeda but i didnt know how to get to higashi umeda, which is the station closest to the apartment and the starting point in the map given by the landlord. the three stations are connected via underground pass and i didn't know where is where. it took us a long time to get our bearings and once we understood where we were we had to find the exit that the landlord gave us. that was another mind-boggling puzzle. once we got to the exit it became much cleaerer. the apartment isn't very near actually. it was almost a 20-25 minutes walk - shorter i'm sure but with the luggage and us being so unfamiliar with the area, and totally knackered from the long trip, it felt like years before we got to the apartment entrance.

it was went away, however, once we got into the place. its quite big, the biggest of all the apartments we booked in japan (the tokyo apartment is a close second), everything in the apartment was good quality, the bathroom was excellent - we could dry clothes in mere 2 hours, i did so many loads of laundry! the kitchen well-equipped. there were 2 double beds in each of the 2 bedrooms and we were able to sleep so comfortably both nights we were there. there were also lots of storage space that i wanted to unpack all three luggage. we absolutely love the place.

we stayed in for about an hour before making our way to a nearby turkish restaurant for dinner, sinasos in doyamacho which is about 1km from the apartment. we're so happy to be able to eat meat again that we ordered practically everything on the menu and paid a bomb!

we came home, showered quickly and slept like a log the whole night.