Japan - Day 6
- RetiredCormac
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Another excellent breakfast at the Hilton Osaka Castle. They pretty much have everything on offer there - Continental, American and of course Japanese. We had another good feed.
From our room on the 19th floor, I watched a school of the ant-like children doing their morning exercises on the pitch below. The kids were surprising in time with each other and despite their young age were very focussed on the task at hand.
We then took a walk around the castle itself. It was pretty, but I preferred the temples etc at Nara, and judging by the number of visitors at each - I think I wasn’t on my own. I guess the most striking thing was the use of water moats and outer walls to provide a protective barrier.
It was moving day - so we checked out of the hotel and made our way by train back to Osaka Itami Airport for the flight to our next destination - a few days in Okinawa. We tried something new to eat again whilst waiting to board - it was basically a freshly baked (very fluffy) cheesecake, which was surprisingly filling, but didn’t make a great lunch.
Everything was on time - which is pretty standard in Japan, and we were soon taxiing out to the runway - the airport ground staff bade our plane farewell, as they always do and shortly after we were above the clouds.
Landing in Naha, Okinawa was a bit of a hassle. The infrastructure, particularly the number of trains was far fewer than the rest of Japan, and thus, you need a hire car to get anywhere and those hire cars aren’t at the airport, but a 30min transfer in heavy traffic.
Once collected we set off for the hotel in the same traffic. Speed limits were typically 30 or 40. It was only when I realised that we were going incredibly slow that it became apparent that these speed limits were km/h.
The Hilton hotel at Naha Shuri Castle was one of those hotels that specialise in housing tour groups. So it was chaotic to manage guests on a daily basis - but managed chaos, as the hotel was set up well to manage what I guess they had gotten very used to. Managing to feed maybe 500 at breakfast illustrated this well.
Food that evening was a strange blend of French and Ramen - I think we both liked it - though I was mysteriously sick in the middle of the night - which may or may not have been connected.
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