Kansai Trip : Before Heading Home

Tadi malam saya baru buka buka foto Kansai Trip yang dari kamera (nowadays, I prefer take picture from phone than camera). Then I remember, I haven’t completed by travelling story to Kansai! Lhahahah!

It was on Saturday I guess, we took trip to Osaka Castle, the city’s landmark. It was built in 1500’s. Such an old building! The enterance fee was JPY 1000/person, yet kids under 16 and senior paid lesser fee.

Istananya ada 8 lantai, tapi ada satu lantai skip gitu, jadi total 7 lantai kali ya? Nah, kalau mau masuk, semua pengunjung harus ke lantai paling atas, The Observation Deck! Tenang ada lift.  Jadi kami antri lift.  And of course, it was holiday, such a long queue. I lost my patient and started to climb the stairs! Yes, all the way to 8th floor!

View this post on Instagram

We were waiting for the elevator that took the visitors to 8th floor of the castle, it was holiday season… so as my friends may guess, I lost my patience. The line was toooooo long. . Then I told my dad that I want to climb 7 levels (it doesn’t have 5th or 6th floor, I can’t recall). PS : all the visitors must go to 8th floor first, then seeing the museum by walking down the stairs. . “Just wait for the elevator, I’ll see you inside!”. He replied “I’m going with you!” “This is an 8-level-building!” “So?” . I insisted for him to stay in the line, he insisted that he’s still strong enough to climb! . And he made it, I was the one who was out of breath 🤣🤣🤣🤣 . So blessed to be his daughter! Stay healthy old man! i hope we can land in DME sometime later this or next year! 🙏🏽 #wheninOsaka

A post shared by Фитриянти (@sikiky) on Jan 22, 2018 at 6:22am PST

Well, that what happened!

Observation Deck

Lalu turun tangga dan mengelilingi bangunan bersejarah ini yang terdiri dari diorama diorama sejarah Jepang dan sejarah dibanggunya Osaka Castle ini.

Agak lama di sini, kami mengisi perut dulu. Nah, saya kan belum lari nih di Jepang, so saya pinjam sepatu Nike anak saya (kebetulan pakai jaket lari hari itu), so I ran in the middle of the day, around Osaka castle. It was 11 degrees, btw! 

Enter a caption

Osaka Castle Park is (as expected) nice ! Banyak yang jualan makanan juga. Kenyang jajan rasanya kita ngga makan siang lagi deh. Langung pindah ke tujuan berikutnya UMEDA SKY BUILDING.Letaknya tidak jauh dari Osaka Main Station.

Tapi karena masih agak sore, we had coffee in small shop.

Masuknya lupa saya bayar berapa, rasanya JPY 1000/yen juga, dan dibawah 21 tahun dan senior lebih murah juga. Jadi yang bayar full, saya saja.

Why we (I) bother to climb here? for this!!!!

Sunset from UMEDA SKY BUILDING

 

Before Sunset

Karena saya kesini musim dingin, sun set at 5 pm. Kalau mau lihat sunset di sini, di cek juga magribnya jam berapa (((magrib))). Karena bagusnya memang pas sunset sih. 360 degrees view of Osaka City. This is 41st floor I guess, there is a restaurant below, complete with sofa and…charging station. 

Lalu kami balik lagi ke Namba, makan malam di sana dan kembali ke Dountobori Area. Sebelum balik ke penginapan, kami beli tiket kereta dulu untuk esok hari. Cari yang semi express, it was JPY 1400/person.

 Keretanya hanya stop di tiga stasiun (dari Namba Station). There is unwritten rule, saying that you have to be very quite on the train. No speaking (loud) allowed (both with mobile phone or person to person). 

And on every trip, I get a bit melancholic I guess, sad to leave since little time to explore.  Seeing thru the windows of Osaka’s suburb and silently saying good bye.

hahahah!

Tempat lain yang menarik di Osaka konon, Osaka Aquarium dan Giant Ferris Wheel. Next time, perhaps.

 

Kita transit di Shang Hai, for four hours and arrive back to Jakarta at 11 pm. AKhirnya nambah cuti sehari anak anak malah ketiduran. Sejak pulang dari Jepang ini we had no domestic helper at home. Si bibik pulang ngga balik lagi karen ngga boleh sama anaknya *curhat* Males juga nyari asisten rumah, kriterianya harus sama dengan si bibik sih. hahahha. Lama lama terbiasa. Bagus juga buat anak anak mandiri dan memanage waktunya.

Saya ingat komentar adek saya di pertengahan 2017.

“Ke Jepang gih, mumpung masih kerja di Bank Jepang. Biar dapat feelnya!” Beneran, pertengahan tahun 2018 saya dapat tawaran kerjaan baru! hahaha! Cenayang juga dia! Jadi ini kantor saya sebelumnya, cabang  yang di Kyoto.

Former Office

Oh ya, teman saya, Agnes baru balik dari Jepang bulan lalu, dia komen

“Sudah ke Jepang, jadi malas ke negara lain ya?” 

Is it true? saya pribadi sih masih pingin re-visit Tokyo, ke Shirakawago (at any season) dan Hokaido pas winter. Walaupun orang Jepang jarang yang bisa bahasa Inggris, tapi di sana mudah sekali. Jajanannya enak.

Anyway, kata-kata saya di caption IG itu, bisa jadi kenyataan sih 😉 Semoga kesampaian, ada yang ingin post card? atau untuk anak Jabodetabek, saya give away Tumbler Starbuck deh! hahahhahahah

 

Kansai Trip : what I did and I did it wrong

One of them…. The Clothes!

As a tropical kid, I used to think living in 4-season-countries is very nice. You got to see leaves change color, longer day time in Summer, snow in winter, etc. when I arranged back my family photo album during road trip in the Northern Globe – in chronicle order – I easily put these stack to that, base on what clothes we were wearing.

when I came back to 4-season-country decades later, I forgot that every season might required different clothes.

What did effect me? I ‘wasted’ my money in Universal studio Japan.

Other thing, I forgot to purchase Express Pass, I took for granted to the fact that is was still new year holiday.

So tips for me

• Yes, it may cost another JPY 6,000 (?) for 5-ride- express pass, but for high season, it is all worth it! It took 2.5 hrs queue to hop in famous ride such as Harry Potter, Spider Man, Minion, Flying Dragon, etc. what a waste of time! Yaaa tapi balik lagi ke masing-masing netijen yeeees! 😉
• Do pay attention to the weather forecast, wether it’d be raining or shining on your chosen day. I know, thing I care nothing about since I live in tropical country. Fortunately, the weather was nice on my schedule.
• Btw, I bought the ticket earlier in Klook.com and it gave me 10% discount.
• Wear comfortable shoes, I cursed that I only take my boots with me
• I thought Uniqlo heat-tech was sufficient to deal with the cold, as it was fine during my Europe trip…teheeeee! I was in Europe for Autumn with low double digit temperature, forget that on winter, it goes to Single Digit (the lowest was 2 degrees, but still —- mind you, I live in tropical country almost all my life). I suppose to buy the Extra Warm Heat Teach from Uniqlo for both top and pants rather than counting on the regular one.
• I didn’t have proper breakfast, so after waiting for 2.5 hrs for Harry Potter ride, I-threw – up! Gosh! I got severe headache!
• The rest of the day went miserable, I couldn’t take another ride, I had to wait for my kids…waiting with not-so-proper clothes for winter (crap) during winter (double crap)!
• waiting in cafe is not really a good option since …a cup hot chocolate cost Yen 500-600. Bangkrut maleeeeh!
• My day was horrible!
• When I asked my kid to go home around 5pm (it was dark already) they wanted to try Flying Dragon when the ride goes upside down! Na’ah! I didn’t want to do it!

This is how it looks like.

• We were in serious debate, then…I heard a language I know! there were 3 young Indonesia female seems (almost) half of age, twice as my son’s age, discussing these ride as well. One of them Ira, wanted to go for a ride, her two friends refused. I – being sok akrab – greeted them and asked:

“mbak, ngga ada teman kan boleh titip anak anak saya yaaa?” 😀

• Of course, she nooded. Those girls work for Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan, (I talked to the other two while waiting) from different cities in this country, take a break before they rolled for another months of training. I envy generasi millenial!
• Then spending another 2.5 misserable hours waiting for my kids
• We (they) didnt ride Minion, I was too tired, suffered nausea, cant bear the cold In short, I was a bit sick and forget to bring Minyak Kayu Putih

But at least kids (of course) were happy, that was the second time for #1 back to Universal Studio the park and third time for #2.

The kids with Ira. Terima Kasih Ira! Dimudahkan semua urusan-urusanmu kelak ya! Amin!

Kalau mau sholat, pinter pinter cari pojokan aja ya 🙂

Anyway, if you’re wondering, that is the reason why I chose Namba Area to stay.

• My dad didn’t come with us to USJ. He can’t take the extreme rides of course. So he spent day by strolling Dountoburi Area. Buka JasTip harusnya bapakku! Hahahah. If I chose other area, I’m afraid he might get lost getting around with train.
• Namba Station is the closest Big Station to Kansai International Airport. We only spent our trip in Kansai, thus we don’t need JR Pass/ Shinkansen. Too expensive.
• Jadi kalau mobilitasnya pakai Shinkansen, mungkin sebaiknya pilih yang dekat Shin Osaka- atau Osaka Station.