Wed 3 - Manilla - Osaka

After a reasonably good night's sleep at the Luxury Hotel we left Manilla on-time at 8:05am.  After a quick-ish 4 1/2 hour flight we arrived at Haneda, sorted out our connecting flight to Osaka and squeezed in a cheeky Asahi 😎

All going well for our first hour in Japan.  

On arrival at Itami Airport Osaka my bag was last off the carousel which caused a slight delay for the purchase of tickets and embarkation on the Limousine Bus, perfectly scheduled to drop us near-ish to our accommodation in Dotonbori.  The trip was 25 mins and we were just commenting on how nice it was they had waited for us and wondering if perhaps they knew about our wee hold-up due to my naughty bag when we noticed the trip seemed to be taking longer than expected.  Both Emily and I logged on to google maps about the same time and eyeballed the screen, eyeballed the moving dot that was us and then eyeballed each other.  It was only then that Emily mentioned she had noticed the words Kansai Airport on the front of the bus before we jumped on.

So despite the driver seeing our tickets that very clearly stated Namba Station and were very clearly priced for Namba Station and me me re-confirming Namba Station as we got on we found ourselves smack bang in the middle of a 1 hour 20 minute trip to Kansai Airport.  😡😡😡😡 (one for each of us)

We were up on some monorail type highway so there was no getting off.  I fidgeted in my seat, eyes rolling, nose scrunching, getting antsier by the minute.  Out came Google Translate so I could relay our disastrous news to the driver.  He was quite conciliatory and made it clear we wouldn't have to pay the fare difference.  Some more eye rolling on the inside, on the outside it was all smiles and waves and arigatou gozaimasu's.

And then things got even worse.  

We had to navigate the Kansai JR station and make our way back to Namba. We found the right train with mere minutes to get to the platform.  That's when we girls lost the wee boys.  Their fault of course.  Both farted around getting through the ticket gate (they later claimed it was broken) meanwhile Em and I dashed through at the speed of light, sped to the platform and were about to jump on board when we noticed something was amiss.  No boys.  Search search search, up and down escalators, round and round platforms.  Gallantly letting the train go so we could locate and rescue the poor lost laddies, noting at this point neither had loaded their Japanese eSims so were incommunicado.

Meanwhile and unbeknownst to us the buggers had made a late dash through the gates, took a different escalator to the platform, jumped on the train and were busy making their merry way to Namba as we caringly searched for the lost, scared, bedraggled, helpless, stranded poppets.

Fast forward.  We got on not the next but the next train, Daniel sorted his phone out and sent a rude text.  Then it was on for young and old.  Obviously still their fault.

Then, with our 25 minute ride turning into a 180 minute fiasco we dragged our suitcases from the station and re-found our happy thoughts with the vibrant lights of Dotonbori, which looked a bit like this....

Got to our very nice and well located accommodation, re-grouped then ventured out to an izakaya for a bite to eat....

Then after a long long day - we crashed.