Shanghai
Today we say goodbye to China and our tour mates and hello to Japan. We had no idea what was in store for us today...dun, dun, dun.
The day began with Ms. Bisconti and I getting a chance to sleep in. When I say sleep in, I mean we got up at 8am. I don't know about the rest of you , but that's not sleeping in to me. : )
Ms. Bisconti and I got a chance to start our morning with a leisurely stop at Starbucks for some much needed feeling of home. To be honest going on 18 days from home and everything we are used to is starting to get to us. I miss my own bed, my favorite foods, and most importantly my family.
After a short tour of Shanghai and the tv tower we headed off to a floating cafe for our final meal as a group. It was nice to joke around one last time before heading off in our own separate directions at the airport. Being a part of a traveling tour group is an interesting feeling. For a brief period in time you see these people you never knew before everyday, almost all day. You forge relationships with these individuals and then all of as sudden you are saying goodbye for the foreseeable future (hopefully not forever with some of them if both individuals make a concerted effort to stay in touch.). Even if you do say goodbye forever it's okay because throughout your life you will meet and have relationships with hundreds of people, some that last for moments, some that last for years, and some that last forever. No matter the length, those people will impact you and how you see the world and in turn you will always be a part of their life as well. Keep that in mind when you strike up a conversation with someone in the elevator or come across someone in pain and in need of assistance. You do matter in the lives of all you meet. And all those people you meet will in some small or major way mold your life in return.
("Reminds me of a great line in a Billy Joel song: "life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I guess it's time for goodbye again."' - Ms. Bisconti)
Ok enough of that. Let's talk about the craziness that occurred in our attempt to get from Shanghai, China to our hotel in Osaka, Japan. Our last trip to a Chinese airport included this time a ride on Shanghai's magnetic train. This amazing engineering feat allows people to travel to the airport at rapid speeds. What normally takes approximately 45 minutes of travel time can be done in 7 on this magnetic train. To warn you, there are no railings and the whole train occasionally tilts to the side as you move at speeds of 301 km an hour. Yes- you read that correctly.
Once we made it to the airport at rapid speed we had to split from our group and make our way to a different terminal. We were flying into Osaka although we were immediately leaving the following day for Kyoto, because Kyoto doesn't have an airport. I tell you this so you understand that we picked the hotel that we did because of its location to the train station and not it's comfort. (Also, I should add , I did not pick the hotel, Ms. Bisconti did. And thank God she did because the next day it's location five minutes away from the station came in incredibly handy as we lugged 50+ pounds of luggage through the streets of Osaka in 90 degree heat. )
Our flight is scheduled to land at 9:10 at night. But of course it's late about 40 minutes by the time we get in to Osaka. Okay, this is a new country we are visiting, so we have to make it through immigration and customs, both of which take forever because we can't understand what forms we need to fill out. Here is the kicker. Once we finally make it to baggage claim (our bags are basically the only ones left unclaimed at this point : ) ) there is another security check point where we are stopped. Mind you our bags have already gone through security before we got to Japan. The security officer decided to check my bag. Now I understand he is doing his job but I can't stand to feel like I'm being perceived as a criminal and I seriously hate the idea of a random person riffling through my clothes and in particular my underwear! It's awkward. Am I right?
Finally through security and it's about 10:30. All the stores and information booths are shutting down for the night and neither of us has any Japanese yen in our pockets to pay for our way to the hotel. Let this be a cautionary tale for some of you travelers out there, plans these things out better than we did.
A little money in our pockets and we proceed outside to catch a taxi. It's a good thing Ms. Bisconti called the Osaka hotel yesterday to get a sense of how far the hotel was from the airport (about 45 min to and hour) and approximately how much it should cost to take a taxi (about 10,000 yen) because the taxi drivers tried to take advantage of us.
You could tell they saw two females alone, late at night with what they thought were no other options and tried to double the price on us. Ps. They were smirking. Listen ladies (and fellas too, if this ever happens to you) don't take that kind of treatment. There is always another option and always honest people to be found.
Leaving the taxi drivers to stand by the side of the road, Ms. Bisconti and I made our way back inside to find someone who could give us a different option. An incredibly sweet young woman told us our best bet would be to take the bus and then she realized that it was past 11 and the last bus left soon. She literally ran down the bus for us while we struggled to keep up with all our bags and helped purchase our tickets before the bus left us and our first night in Japan would have been spent sleeping on the benches in the airport.
So we are traveling on this bus unsure of what stop we are supposed to get off of and wondering how we will get from the bus stop to our actual hotel. Forty-five minutes later we hop off the bus about 70% sure we are at least in the right city and hop into a taxi. We finally reached our hotel around 12:30am exhausted and ready to pass out. But...once we saw the room the giggles came and we we're wide awake again. The room was so tiny (Both of us have been in tiny rooms throughout Europe but this was even smaller.) we could have held hands across the two beds while we slept if we wanted to. The bathroom reminded me of an airplane toilet. Everything was plastic and there was only one knob to turn both the faucet and the shower on. The pictures below can't quite capture the situation. To be fair, it was very clean and honestly that's all that really matters in the end. Our first night in Japan over we fell asleep quickly once our heads hit the pillows preparing for our trek to Kyoto the next day. We hadn't quite figured out how we were getting there yet either...
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