Japan Diaries [Day 13]

Day 13 [October 8/9th]

* Reluctantly we say goodbye to Osaka and travel to Kansai International Airport (KIX) by a JR service. We actually get to see more of Osaka this way – it’s a port city, with sprawling bridges, neons and nearly nine million people (considering it’s only 30km away from Kyoto, I can see why Kyoto is much smaller in population). KIX itself is impressive, built on reclaimed land, 2km off the coast of Japan, with the longest departure lounges of any airport in the world apparently (thanks Wikipedia!). Lots of glass, metal and open spaces ~ I wish I’d gotten more picture of it, always a dubious thing to do in an airport!

* While waiting for the flight (KIX-->Kuala Lumpur), we see a man sitting in our departure lounge with an annoying sniffing habit. Sure, in Japan it is considered rude to use a tissue in public (and sniffing is perfectly acceptable. Personally it’s a sound that drive me crazy!). This man’s sniff wasn’t any old ‘dry’ sniff, but a mucous-y one that cleared his throat at the same time. Matt and I joked to each other that he’d be sitting near us on the plane… and sure enough he was! Same row, about 5 seats away. He’d clear his throat 2-3 times every 5 minutes or so… for the entire 6.5 hour leg! Sadly, you could still hear it over the whine of the engines, so I spent a lot of time with headphones on. :P

* First leg of the flight was fairly calm, as far as flights (and my nerves) go. 11:30am-5pm. Despite going into this pretty scared (considering the flight over to Tokyo), I’d given myself no time to think about the flight, so I think it was part of the reason I coped with this one better (fear of the fear, as a couple of noters wrote while I was in Tokyo). Matt and I found much to entertain ourselves with, so time passed pretty quickly. I won’t say I wasn’t a (bit of) bundle of nerves, but okay. :)

* Four hour stopover in KL airport ~ rather dull but we spend time stretching our legs and looking around at ridiculously huge bottles of alcohol (Matt contemplates buying some but gets lazy about carting it back to Melbourne, lol). Fulfil my fruit craving with a big bowl of fruit salad – I’ve probably had fresher, but to me it was heaven!

* We find ourselves in a Cheers bar (seriously…) and Matt watches some soccer while we rest in a comfy booth in the bar. Progressively I hear familiar accents filling the area and realise how distinctive the Australian accent is when used to hearing primarily Japanese for a while (do we really sound that strange??). Probably 75% Aussies in the bar within an hour. There’s an old joke that if you go to a bar anywhere around the world, there’ll be an Australian in there somewhere. This does nothing to dispel the myth, in fact it makes me laugh! People gathered, talked about their travels in different parts of the world, and waited for the overnight (red eye) flights back to Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide.