Although I’m not travelling as much as I have been over the last couple of years, I wanted to try and document some of my travel thoughts that I wrote down to help myself with remembering everything I experienced! It’s also a great opportunity for me to share with friends to inspire them, while simultaneously giving me an excuse to spend some time to update my website! I’m going to try and update as often as I can in between all the things I do day to day, so bear with me as we slowly work through everything.
Prologue
Back in the middle of 2024, a college friend of mine (we’ll call him Bryan) asked our friend group if anyone was interested in going to Japan. Since they work in the medical field, they have to plan their vacation really far out in advance, and so they had made some plans with a friend to go visit Japan for the first time in years (last time I had gone with them to Japan and Korea back in 2019). I myself hadn’t gone since then either due to Covid, but I had expressed wanting to go again at some point. It was a little too far out for me to plan though, since I knew some of my closest friends were getting married around the time that was being discussed, and I had no idea what life was going to look like in 10 months.
That being said, I was definitely interested because being relatively newly single I had decided just a few months prior to redirect all of my energy into reinforcing the bonds I had with my friends by traveling to visit them. In fact, I was on my 5th trip in 6 weeks, visiting a couple of friends in LA when I saw the message! I was definitely pretty fatigued, so I asked Bryan to keep me updated on their plans and I’d figure something out.
Cut from May to October and Bryan sends a message saying they’ll be visiting Japan in late March with their friend (who we’ll call Chris). I said I’m down but I needed to find time to sort out stuff out first since I’d be traveling a lot. I asked another friend of mine (we’ll call him Jim) that had been with me to Japan every time before to see if he was down, and before I knew it, we threw together some ideas and plans to go on a wild journey through Japan. Before this even solidified though, we already had plans to visit Japan in November - but that’s a story for another time! (mostly because I didn’t write anything down)
The Flight
Jim and I had managed to get some business class tickets using reward points, or rather he did while I got lucky and managed to get selected to upgrade my seat from economy to business using points. I hadn’t really thought about it, but taking the flight out on business does wonders for starting the trip off right since even though it’s not perfect, just getting to lie down and getting a little bit of sleep helps so much with being awake to start the day right off the plane.
On top of that, the meals are pretty solid and having space for carry ons and not having to stress about anything is super nice too! It’s not something I’ll be able to do very much, but having the opportunity to try it is something I appreciate a lot.
Landing in KIX
If I remember correctly the flight was approximately 12 hours, which really wasn’t that bad thanks to the amenities and the fact that I’d spent so much time on planes in the last year that I’d kind of gotten used to it! We landed in KIX in Osaka around 5:00 PM, where we then had to wait in a really long line to get through customs and other entry procedures. I feel like it took at least an hour to exit the airport, followed by an hour train ride from KIX to our hotel which was in Osaka Station. Before departing we needed to pick up our JR Pass as well, which we had made reservations for beforehand.
Which brings us to the main goal of this trip!
Make the most of a JAPAN RAIL PASS!
I had listed some locations I wanted to hit up to Jim, and he made a detailed plan for where we would be each day, with some ideas of where we could go while we were in town. And so our challenge was to see how just how much we could explore to maximize the value of a now very expensive pass (I had gotten a 3 week pass, which cost 100,000 JPY which at the time was approximately 600 USD).
Lost in Osaka
The train ride from KIX to Osaka Station took a bit to figure out to make sure we were taking the right train and not going the wrong way. However we managed to find our way there without much issue, and waited around for a shuttle to our hotel. It was pretty exciting stepping out of the station into the city, since we had just been there ~4 months prior (the previous trip I had mentioned), so seeing the same view felt like we were truly back.
We spent 20 minutes wandering around Osaka station with our big suitcases until we finally found what we thought was the shuttle stop under the bridge, however we waited for an hour wandering up and down the street without ever seeing a shuttle come. We were staying in the Westin Osaka, which was a 15 minutes walk away, but we were so deep in the sunk cost fallacy that surely the bus would come in the next few minutes that we didn’t end up walking. Eventually we were tired of waiting and decided to just call a taxi from the nearby taxi stop because we just wanted to put our stuff down and find some food.
Time to Eat
We checked in and dropped our bags in our room and went to see if the lounge was still open since Jim has a lot of benefits at Marriot hotels. However they had already stopped service so we decided to look for something nearby to eat. Looking for places that were open late (I think was almost 8:00 or 9:00 PM at this point), we decided on a sushi place nearby called Hanazakura that striked our fancy.
I was a little unsure since it was in a very touristy part of Osaka but at this point we just wanted to eat so we decided to take a look. It was getting close to end of service however the staff was super friendly and welcomed us in, and although it might’ve been a little tourist trap-esque it was super nice that they were so welcoming and spoke some english. We got omakase since it’s always fun to see what the chef will serve up, and everything was pretty solid! I wouldn’t say it’s my go-to place but I was satisfied with what we got. As we were paying and getting ready to leave one of the waitresses complimented me on my nails too, which made me really happy!
End the Day
Afterwards Jim and I planned solidified our plans for the next day, going over all the logistical details before turning in for the night. And so ended our first (half) day in Japan!
Not the smoothest start but it could have been much worse, and if anything a lot of things went right for us!
Looking back in hindsight, I would say that really summed up the entire trip for us. No spoilers though, look forward to the rest!
JR Pass Value after day 1
Cost saved: ¥1180
Time Travelled: ~1 hr
Some information may be outdated