Boarding at Kansai

The Kansai Airport was much smaller than expected for an international airport. But the place was certainly geared for high volume I passengers as it showed this morning.

Since I bought a few items in Kyoto which I could get tax reimbursements for, I thought I had to show them to customs. It turned out that I didn't have to. Therefore, I had to do a bit of repackage before I got my luggages checked in. That took a bit of doing, especially taking some of the toys out from the bulky boxes.

The check-in queue was long, and that was not half the story. The next line up was to get through security. There were easily a couple hundred people in front of me, but the arrangement was so tight that there were no queue cutting. And the queue went through very fast. They had six X-ray machine to service us, and the staff on duty was very good at getting the lines moving. The instructions were also very clear.

Once we were through security, immigrations came next. Again another long but efficient queue. I would imagine KLIA would struggle to service such volume of passenger. Certainly these Japanese were very good at managing the traffic.

Next came breakfast. It was either Japanese of Western. Of course it was Japanese ....

I finished the rest of my yen buying sweets and chocolates. Luckily I managed to get everything cramped into my bag, as otherwise I might have to pay some tax at the customs when I reach KLIA as the shopping bags may look rather suspicious ..... More on my Kyoto trip here.

Setting Off

It was a good thing that we set off early from Kyoto to the Kansai Airport in Osaka this morning as the journey took close to a couple if hours and there was a long queue at immigrations and check-in. Starving, right after we cleared the security we rushed for breakfast. A ramen affair this morning. And it was not long before we started doing some duty free and rushing to the terminal to board, a short train ride away.

One of my colleague wasn't very well, with a slight virus and was feeling under the weather the whole journey to the airport. As for me, I was sleeping away all the way. Setting off at 6.45 and a bit of packing meant that I had to wake up at 5.30.

And it was raining all the two hours in the bus ..... more entries from the trip here.

The Next Morning

Talking about timing. Even the weather turned dull this morning, as planned. I was heading to the Conference Centre after breakfast. A quick coffee there before setting off again. This time for a morning of indoor shopping!

The thing was, the afternoon program looked really good on paper. I was just bringing my camera, minus the conference bag today. Looking forward for some proper shopping. Hmmm! What to do first ....

More on my Kyoto trip.

Day Full of Walking

I was just back from visiting not one, not two, but three attractions in town, all in one morning. I went with my current and previous boss, and we managed to squeeze all this in one tiring morning. We got back to the conference centre in time for lunch, and as expected, I was dozing away right after despite picking up a cup of latte coming into the hall.

I will blog a bit more about the places individually as I would have to refer to some notes as I was not familiar with their names. None the less, I took tons of photos, and those would keep me busy on the coming weeks.

I was still struggling to get hold of the local currency. I had to rely on my credit cards to make purchase and paying for taxi. But not all the shops accepted credit cards. My USD were also staying put as there were no place able to use it.

I would probably do a bit of shopping later tonight. I managed to get some titbits and souvenir, but would be looking for some clothes for the boys and something nice for Anita. That would take some time. I would likely go to one of the main shopping centres for that, maybe tomorrow. I have probably done enough walking for today .....

More entries from my Kyoto trip here.

Teppanyaki Disappointment

We had a nice dinner last night, although I would still have to wait ton have a fast of a proper sushi in Japan. It was a teppanyaki affair we had last night, and I opted for the seafood variety, which the chef was struggling to provide.

We ended up having some garden salad being cooked on a stone stove. In the end, even the chef came around and asked us what else we would like. But the opening gambit of fresh prawns, grilled in front of our very eyes was a successful one. The prawn was fresh, sweet and succulent. But everyone ended up with only one piece.

The miso was rather too salty. And although the meal as a whole was fine, I was expecting that bit extra. This being at the heart of Japan and all.

I was told that we as a group would be heading to a sushi bat tonight. Let's see what Japan dining is all about .... more entries from this trip here.