The trip from Hakuba to Osaka was hard work and I'm knackered from it all. Last blog I left had me sitting in the common room of the pal house surrounded by mattresses and waiting for my lift.

Well my lift came and when it did it was still pouring outside. I loaded my bag on to the back of the flatbed little van and the Korean girls came out and said goodbye to me. I got a hug and they waved until I disappeared into the fog as we rounded the corner.

I was getting a lift from the pal house manager. It was really nice of him and he even gave me a banana for my trip. He dropped me off and I thanked him for the lift and waved him goodbye. I bought my ticket to Nagano and waited for the bus. This bus was an hour trip to Nagano and I took a few photos along the way.

When I arrived in Nagano the fog was gone and I was left with 5 hours till my bus and 60kg worth of luggage weighing me down. I traversed to the other side of the station where I knew there were lockers and after some directions I found them. Sadly my board bag was too long and my luggage to fat to fit even the biggest of the lockers. I gave up on the lockers and made my way across the street to chat to the bus depot and check where I needed to be for the bus. I could see across from the bus stop the McDonalds I had eaten at with the girls the day we arrived in Nagano and feeling peckish dragged myself and the luggage back across the street. I noticed that a few of the booths had power sockets. I set down my bags next to the booth. Ordered 3 hamburgers a shaka shaka chicken an apple pie and a coffee and made myself at home. Unpacking my laptop and booting up dawn of war 2.This is where I spent the next 5 hours kicking ass on an alien world. The time went fast and I stopped briefly to buy a milkshake.

At 9:45 I packed up my stuff and headed across the road to the bus stop where people were starting to queue for the night bus. Now I don't know if I had told you before but a week or two before I was chatting to two of my Japanese co-workers and found out they were going to Osaka too. They told me they had managed to get a night bus direct from Hakuba to Osaka for 1500 less than I had yet come across. I tried to find this mythical bus trip but had no luck. Back at the station I saw them there with 3 of the Hakuba kitchen staff. Turns out they were on the same bus as me. And they were paying the same they had just not included the price of the bus from Hakuba to here. The kitchen girls all shouted and hugged me and it was great to have people there to say good bye too. I now had friends on the trip and 3 girls waving me and the guy's good bye. It was nice. We took a group photo and got on the bus. The trip was underway. The bus trip itself was uneventful. I had a couple of stops for services and I slept and watched films on the way. The seat was really comfortable and the journey went fast. In the early hours of the morning I arrived in Shin Osaka and got off the bus grabbed my luggage and said goodbye to my sleepy friends from Hakuba. Now is where it got complicated.

I now had 60kg of luggage and it was pouring down and I hadn't a clue where I was. I had saved a little map to my iTouch and looked vacantly at it for inspiration. After some wandering I found a random guy to give me directions that involved climbing 4 flights of stairs to get on the other side of the station. I looked at my map again and it told me I had to walk up two streets and across two. I had obviously read this wrong. I walked for over an hour. I dragged my ass and cases up and down overpasses and across train tracks until I found someone to ask for directions. I showed them my little map and he pointed at the ground.I asked again and he again instead of pointing at the map to say where I was pointed at the ground. It took a moment to realise that what he was not pointing to the ground but saying I was about 2 inches off the end of my map. b*****! I had walked about 2km too far. Turns out that the Lawson I passed 5 minutes into my journey was my Lawson. I found this out 20 minutes later when I had got back that way. I looked down the street now referring to the notes I had from the agency detailing the address and my post-box combination. The key it seems is in the post box and I was in room 701.the room next to me would occupied by an employee of the agency. I was told the building number was 31 and walked down the street looking for numbers. I found 30. I looked at the building next to it. And it was nice. There was a Mazda Rx 8 in the garage, the building looked like black marble and was very clean and classy. I took my bags in to the lobby. And tried the combination on the post-box…it didn't work. I tried again and a couple more times but still nothing. Just then a resident came out of the secured building door. I held it open. I dragged my bags in after me and decided to just head to my room. I piled into the lift and headed to the 7th floor. The floor opened out into a corridor with four doors 701 to 704. The doors them self were a mottled bronze with ornate handles and again I was impressed. I tried the door to 701 which I was assured would be unlocked….it was locked. I knocked on the door to 702 where I was assured a member of the agency lived and would be at home….nothing. I was pissed off.

I propped my bags up against the wall and now unburdened went in hunt of a phone. I went back down in the lift and out the secure door (automatically locking behind me) and out into the street. I found a phone within a minute next to the Lawson store. I called Take at the agency. And explained I was there and that the combination didn't work and no one was in room 102….he simply said…"you're in the wrong building then". I told him what the building looked like and he confirmed that it wasn't my building. b*****!! Now my bags were on the 7th floor of some random building that I had no access to. This morning sucked. Turns out that I had gone to building 29 and 31 was the other side of 30. I checked and found a post-box…the combination worked first time and inside was my key and electronic card. I went upstairs to the flat. It was nice and was the penthouse of the building. I found my room, open as promised and my neighbour in the room next to me popped her head out and said "Hi", as promised. I put down my backpack which luckily I had not left. And sat for a few minutes to catch my breath. I was tired and soaked...but had no other clothes. I locked the door to my new room and went back to the other building where I sat on the floor of the lobby for 40 minutes until someone came through the security door. I managed to get my stuff and take it to my room. As I passed the Mazda rx8 I realised that building 29 was well out of my price range.