Mainland Travel-OSAKA!

Everyone talks about how one of the best parts of living in Okinawa, is the ability to travel around Asia and see so many different things. We decided that if we're going to do any traveling, we need to just start planning things, otherwise 3 years is going to be gone before we know it! The fact that Rowan is still under 2 and flies for free is also a bonus! Since neither of us have done any international travel before, we decided to stick with the somewhat familiar and venture up to mainland Japan and visit Kyoto while the cherry blossoms were in bloom! Japan felt "safe" because we know a few phrases, already are comfortable using yen, etc. So...we booked a trip and made it happen! 

There are a few economy airlines here which have really affordable tickets to nearby places, so we reserved our flights on Peach Airlines and had a great experience. It was nothing fancy but couldn't beat the price of just over $120 round trip for each of us. The flight from Naha (Okinawa) to Osaka is 2 hours. Some might be intimidated by a flight with a baby...luckily we got over that long ago. However, he is at a more mobile stage which was a little harder, but he did really well overall. 

The Peach terminal was pretty funny...a bunch of plastic lawn chairs and the food court was a guy with a menu and a microwave. We shared some taco rice and were on our way!

We knew it was going to be a new kind of adventure with a baby in a big city with public transportation. We took a plane, train, bus and subway while we were there!

In Okinawa, there are English translations in several places because of the large military presence here. We found the English signs to be fewer on mainland, but luckily there was still some help in most necessary places. We needed some help buying our subway tickets though, so pushed the help button on this machine, thinking that someone would walk over shortly to help us. Instead, a cute little man popped out of the panel on the left and reached around to help us. It was hilarious! I so wish we could have taken a picture of him bursting out of the little panel!

 

And in the end, we finally made it to Namba Station, our destination for  the evening, as we decided to spend our first night in Osaka in the Shinsaibashi district. 

We were starving and excited to see this little and delicious waffle stand!
 One thing they do really well in Japan are the baked goods (which was not something I anticipated!)

We then made the walk through some crazy streets to our hotel. We were excited to unload our luggage and go out exploring! 

I hadn't done a lot of research on the area, so wasn't quite sure what to expect as far as shopping, etc. Needless to say, I was VERY excited to see familiar stores like H&M and Zara as we started walking down the street :) It was fun to be in a big city again and I couldn't believe how many people there were everywhere!

We did a little shopping at H&M, and that's where I first realized that Rowan was going to start receiving even more attention than he does in Okinawa. He had his own little fan club everywhere we went...and as you can tell, was loving all the ladies staring at him :)

I've always heard how awesome H&M is for kid's clothes, but I had never had good experiences finding things there. However, this one had an amazing kids section and I got Rowan so many cute and affordable pieces for his wardrobe. I was pretty excited to be able to shop somewhere besides the Exchange!

We had asked people about good food options and had heard that Osaka is famous for their takoyaki (octopus balls)...so we had to give them a try. Unfortunately, I still get queasy just thinking about them :) Not as good as I had hoped. I even thought they had some good potential, but the inside was mushy and raw batter tasting and it was just not good!

So Rowan and I sat and ate yogurt melts instead :)

We rounded out the night with a little more walking and shopping and then headed back to our room, for a less than restful night's sleep :)

Rowan had a bit of a hard time falling asleep with us in "his" room...and then once he finally got to sleep decided he wanted to sleep sideways in between us in a double bed :) We were a bit tired in the morning, but it's ok, because we were up early and ready to catch the train to Kyoto!