Hi everyone,

First i would like to welcome my mum to the blog, congratulations on finding it!

We are currently in Tokyo but we thought we should really tell you more about Osaka.
So as i mentioned last week we missed the boat from Shanghai to Osaka by 10mins, first
we had to get the overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai then get a bus or taxi to the
harbour, but the flipping train conductor woman told us to get off at the wrong stop 2
hours before we where supposed to get off. I knew it was wrong but no none listens to me!!
so then began a giant war between us and the ticket staff who wanted to charge us shed loads to get to shanghai = anyway the short answer is we made it to Shanghai got to the terminal 10 mins after they closed the passport control.
seriously this place is in the middle of nowhere, so we weren't going to walk far lugging our bags, so we went into the first smartish looking hotel to use the internet and decide what to do next.
The lady at the business centre looked into flying same day and it was the same price as the ferry plus we get there 2 days earlier and we can decide when we come back as dates and times are pretty strict on the ferry. so 5 hours after missing the ferry we where flying to Kansai airport!

After checking into our hostel - which is very nice - we went to explore and get some Yen as we are now having problems with Barclays bank - they are useless and do not understand that we are unable to visit the Bracknell branch and pick up a flipping calculator/pin centry device so ALL our savings are in the account that we have to pay £4 odd every time we use it and can only take £350 a day but flights/hotels etc only except cash - so as we do not have this calculator thing we cannot transfer funds to our free to use Nationwide accounts!!
OK enough moaning, osaka is very cool, lively and exciting and full of weirdo's! No there not weirdo's they are individualists that all look the same. At first we thought all the guys with there orangy colored hair and thin legged black suits where those people trying to get you to go to there nightclub, but no they are just standing around posing!

So apart from watching people we visited Osaka Castle, Himeji Castle seen Geisha and done some Cherry blossom viewing plus a few temples and shrines but it seems we spent a lot of time waiting for our JR Rail pass (£400 each) to come from the UK by eating and drinking!
We have decided as we have an open ticket we will extend our Japan trip by a week or so and stay further south than we had originally planned.

One other thing, how does a country that invented the clever toilet with a seat warmer and fake flush sound also still use a hole in the ground?

Now off to Tokyo :)