Today was the inevitable, but sad day where we moved on from Kyoto, and made our last city hop of the trip. Back to Osaka, where this all began, almost 3 weeks ago.

We packed up our belongings, and walked out of our spacious apartment for the last time. The Sakara Apartment was a fantastic find, and is probably the most comfortable place we've stayed in Japan. All for less than the cost of the average twin bed motel room per night. For anyone with children considering staying anywhere near the Gion area in Kyoto, I'd highly recommend it.

As we left the apartment, we made our way through the smelly market alleyway for the final time, thankfully. We've become very familiar with the usual group of 95 year old market stall owners who tend to their smelly little shops from morning to dusk. At the time we were leaving they were all setting up their tables selling all kinds of very dead fish and fish related wares.

I'm almost positive that they fish that they are trying to sell are actually the same fish that they've been trying to sell all week, and instead of getting new fish when they don't sell, they simply pull the roller-doors down, close the store, go home, and reopen the shop the next morning and try to sell the same fish. The fish look like they're the exact same fish every day, and they sat in the same position on the same table every time we went past. I'm certain the fish just sit there until they sell, or decay. That would account for the smell anyway.

We ended up bidding farewell to Kyoto without actually seeing any of it this morning. The subway station entrance is right outside of our door. The subway takes you underground to Kyoto station, and before you know it, you're out of Kyoto station, and bound for Osaka.

Our journey through the Kyoto subway station was made much easier by a pleasant old guy with an excellent grasp of English, who was going the same way we were, so was happy to guide us through the platform numbers, train changes, etc. We pretty much knew where we were going, and the Kyoto subway line is about as easy as they get, so we would have been fine without the help, but it was a very kind gesture nevertheless.

One thing I won't miss when we head back to Australia is the crowded local train rides. Shinkansen's are great. Express trains where you generally get seats are good too. Local lines, usually used for travelling around common city routes, are just hell.
The entire journey from Kyoto to Osaka involved 2 subway trains, and 3 local trains. All of them superheated. All of them crowded, and all of them standing up.

Emerging from the Universal Port train station in Osaka, I was hit with the coldest wind I think I've ever felt. It may have been partially because I was lathered in sweat from the superheated train rides, but the wind felt like it was blowing straight off snow. We've been through snow a couple of times on this trip, and this was much colder than any wind we've felt anywhere else so far. A quick check of the weather report for Osaka read 3 degrees, mixed rain and snow.

Why was the weather like a Fijian summer up in Nagano, and so damn cold in Osaka?

So with our bags we made our way along Universal City towards the Universal Studios gate, where I was convinced that we could detour to get to the hotel. It seems I was mistaken, and we should have gone the other way out of the train station instead of along past the restaurants of Universal City. It wasn't too much of a problem though, as it just meant we had to take an elevator down to street level, and walk up the road through the freezing icy wind to the hotel.

Hotel Universal Port where we're staying takes the prize for the most impressive lobby I've seen. As the official Universal Studios Japan hotel, they've taken the movie themed design of Universal Studios and have incorporated it into the hotel.
The lobby is fantastic, with water features everywhere, and about the largest fishtank I've seen in a hotel, just behind reception, filled with tropical fish.

We checked in, but weren't able to access the room until 3pm, so we left the bags, and returned back over the road to Universal City for some breakfast/lunch.

When we arrived back to Universal City, we noticed that this walkway, lined with shops and restaurants, is doing its very, very best to convince you that you're no longer in Japan anymore. There is very little, if any, Japanese signage on any of the walls, posters or restaurants. There are huge posters of people having fun enjoying the restaurants, or Universal Studios itself, and not one of the people in any of the posters is Japanese. To complete the illusion, they've taken as many American restaurants as possible, and have stuffed them all together. Even the sushi train restaurant has pictures of American people enjoying the food, and English signage explaining what a sushi train restaurant is.

So when in Rome...try to go to the most overpriced, cheesy, commercialised American establishment you can find. And with that, we entered the Hard Rock Cafe.
I've actually wanted to try a Hard Rock Cafe, so today was a perfect opportunity.

I thought it would be outrageously expensive.
I thought the food would probably be pretty ordinary.
I thought I'd probably leave there disappointed, and there's a chance I'd also leave hungry.
I was right.

When we entered, we were greeted by the hipster Japanese maitre d', with his oversized black rim glasses, silly little bowler hat, and attitude like he was too cool to look interested in serving us. It took me a few seconds to be sick of him, and I couldn't even understand what he was saying.
Next, he handed us over to the female clone of himself, who begrudgingly asked us whether we wanted smoking or non smoking. We said non smoking, so she led us to a table, right next to a table full of people smoking. All that separates the smokers and the non smokers is a handrail. She looked quite surprised when we asked to be moved. She seemed to be under the impression that the smoke knew which side of the handrail to stay on.

So, annoyed at having to do something, she led us to another table, and then vanished. I'm assuming she went to lie down to recover from the stress we just put her through.
Looking through the menu at the $25 burgers and $45 steaks, I suddenly began to lose my appetite out of spite.
When a 3rd, more helpful waitress came along we ordered kids meals, and just a nachos for Veronica and myself to share.
The meals came out fairly quickly, since not many other people were stupid enough to be eating there. The kids meals were nice, but nothing spectacular. The nachos were also tasty, but massively overpriced.

Then we notice the bill. 10% forced gratuities has been added onto the total. Gratuities for what?! I'm pretty certain that the good people of Universal City need a loud, clear reminder that THEY ARE NOT IN AMERICA.
Back to the counter, and begrudgingly handed over the money to my hipster friend with the silly hat, feeling completely and utterly shafted. I was very close to giving him the exact money, minus the gratuities, to make it clear I didn't want to pay them, but the language barrier probably would have meant a long and drawn out sequence of arm waving and sign language to get them to understand the point of my protest. Then I probably would have had to pay the stupid tip charge anyway, so I took the easy way out and just paid it.

No matter. I've wanted to try Hard Rock forever, and I can say I've been there now. One more thing to tick off the to-do list. Never, ever, ever again though, unless someone else is paying.

After wandering back through the souvenir shops, and getting shop attendants all excited with the prospect of selling their overpriced junk, we headed back for the hotel to check in.

I collected the key, and knew enough Japanese to make the girl behind the counter explain all of the hotel's many features and benefits to me in rapid Japanese, so I caught absolutely none of it. I understood where the lifts were, I understood that check-out was midday Friday, and I understood Thank you. Everything else was...well...Japanese to me.

She did however give me a bunch of welcome gifts, including 5 sets of the coolest chopsticks in the history of the world. These chopsticks are modelled like little mini Katana swords, and are just fantastic. Easily the highlight of my day, but as I've mentioned before I am both childish and easily amused.

Continuing with the oceanarium theme of the ground floor, the lift was lit blue. Very, very blue, and was like traveling 13 floors in a fishtank. Then to accentuate this point, as we stepped out of the elevator we were greeted by a tank of live jellyfish built into the wall, glowing under the UV light shining into their tank. Pretty cool. Veronica checked out the other floors, and they all too have jellyfish, so there is either separate tanks, or a series of giant jellyfish tanks built into the wall opposite the lifts.

The room at Universal Port hotel is pretty damn cool. Probably the nicest hotel room I can remember staying in. Very modern bathroom facilities. A spacious corner room with views over Osaka Harbour on one side, and over Osaka Bridge, the Aquarium and out to the mouth of the harbour out of the other side.

And, quite simply the most fantastic toilet anywhere.

This toilet knows when you approach, and raises the lid. Seriously.
This scared the living hell out of Isabelle who used the toilet first, and we're lucky that there wasn't an accident on the toilet floor, but after she realised that it was just a magical toilet seat, she learned to love it.
The separate wall mounted toilet controls come with all kinds of undercarriage spritzing, massaging, oscillating and drying options. It is pretty much like you're sitting on top of a carwash, and you get full control of what, where and how hard to wash, all at your fingertips.

Despite my best efforts to stay conscious, I was exhausted in the afternoon, so when I fell asleep Veronica took the girls down to level 2 to check out the "kids room" at the hotel. Underwhelming my all accounts, they were back after an hour or so, and we got ready to go out for dinner.

While getting ready for dinner, I noticed out the window that the Universal Studios illumination parade had started, as it snaked its way from the storage sheds towards the park.
When we later inquired at hotel reception what time this light parade was happening, we were told in no uncertain terms that the park shut nearly 2 hours ago, at 5pm, and there was no light parade. The friendly concierge must have thought we'd lost our minds when we claimed that we had just watched the light parade only minutes ago. Apparently we didn't.

Back over to Universal City we looked at a few places as we walked through, but cold, and tired we didn't search for long. There was a giant shrimp out the front of the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant which posed with the girls, and almost convinced us to go inside, but I got outvoted, so we continued. Perhaps tomorrow.
This restaurant does look pretty damn cool. Bubba Gump Shrimp is the shrimp from the movie Forest Gump, and Universal obviously have merchandising and naming rights, so they're using the brand to sell seafood to tourists. That's a good enough reason for me though. I want it.

Instead of giving our money to Forest Gump we moved onto the place next door, who's name I still can't pronounce. Saizeriya. When I try to say it, it sounds a little bit like a sneeze.

This place reminded me of a Japanese highschool cafeteria. Or at least it would have reminded me, had I ever been a Japanese highschool kid. The whole restaurant was plain, and set up exactly as you'd expect a huge lunchroom to look like, in neat, orderly rows.
And the other thing that added to the illusion of high school was that the meals were stupidly cheap. Main meals, which were actually really quite tasty, were around $6 each. We got all of our 5 meals, plus sides, soups and entrees, plus bottomless drinks for less than the cost of the 3 kids meals at the Hard Rock Cafe just down the hallway. And I didn't even have to pay forced gratuities at this restaurant!

The desert menu at the unpronounceable restaurant didn't appeal, so we stopped in at the Lawson convenience store for choc-mint ice-cream tubs, and headed back to the room.

Tomorrow on the agenda was going to be Universal Studios, but we were informed down in the lobby that Universal Studios actually shuts at 5pm during February. Considering the usual wait times for the rides, this means that they would probably close the ride lines at around 4pm, which, considering they open at 10am is just insane.
During summer the park is open until 10pm, and as we found when Disneyland closed at 7pm, shorter days at the theme parks just isn't enough time. 5pm is just ridiculous.

Considering they're not charging any less money for the massively reduced number of hours they're offering, we've decided to forgo the visit to Universal Studios on this trip. If the ticket prices were 40% cheaper due to the 40% reduction in park hours we probably would have gone, but not at full price with a huge 5 hour reduction in park time.
Angela is quite disappointed, but spending a few hundred dollars for the privilege of spending between 6 and 7 hours at Universal Studios just can't be justified. I have no idea why they would shut the park at 5pm in Winter. We were walking around at 8pm after dinner, and it was colder at midday when we got off the train.