12 Sep 2008 - Day 1: Touch Down at Osaka (Namba)

We are flying off to Osaka early this morning. It's really early as the flight departure time is 0110hrs. We reached the T3 staff checkin counter at about 11pm and Jerlene had already fallen asleep during the journey to the airport. I hope that it will be like Jerlene's first flight last Oct to Sydney when she practically slept through the entire flight from take off till landing. Unfortunately, she woke up just after we boarded the plane (SQ618).
I thought she may feel uncomfortable during take off but she seemed fine. After the seat belt sign went off, I carried her for short while and she went back to sleep. The flight served breakfast 3hrs before the landing time and since Jerlene was still sleeping, we had a peaceful meal. And just when we were about to land, she woke up. My worry is unnecessary because she again did not have any discomfort during landing.

We landed at Kansai International Airport (Osaka) at about 0825hrs. After going through the custom, we spent sometimes at the airport tourist information centre to see if there is any information that will be helpful for our coming one week stay in Osaka. We then took a train to Namba where our first hotel is located. As we were still early for room check in, we left our luggages at the hotel lobby and started exploring the surrounding area.

As we were not familiar with the surrounding, we just walked from street to street. After passing several streets, we came upon a place packed with people, music, colourful advertisement and shop's decoration. We had reached this place called Dotonbori.
We rested here for a while and I guessed it was the loud music that woke Jerlene up. Notice she was still wearing her sleep wear because after we landed, we have not gotten the chance to change for her yet.
She was a bit blurred at the beginning as she suddenly saw so many people walking around her. But when it comes to food ("mum mum" in her language), she started to change into her "active" mode.
Since Jerlene was awake, we walked down towards the nearby Shinsaibashi street where more shops and eateries are located. Jerlene is a real shopper. Whenever she enters any shop, she will be on her own. We were at a Disney Store when she started making friends with the salesgirls. Somehow it seems that Jerlene and those Japanese salesgirls were able to communicate. Anyway, we bought a pair of Crocs shoes for Jerlene at the store.
After that, we continue to walk down a few streets and unknowingly, we had already walked for more than 3hrs and it's time to go back to our hotel to check in.

After check in, all 3 of us were so tired that we all slept soon after we entered our room. When we woke up, it was already about 7pm. We quickly washed up and get ourselves changed and off we go for dinner. As it was already quite late, we decided to just go somewhere nearby, Namba Parks.

We went into a Japanese restaurant for dinner and we also ordered a kid's meal for Jerlene. This is the first time Jerlene had her own "outside" meal. These were what we ordered...

When dinner was over, we walked over to a rooftop garden of Namba Parks. Jerlene had fun running around the place and this is the end of Day 1.


(Wow.........it's only day 1 after writing for hours. Wonder when I can finish blogging the entire trip.......)