Day 21 - Goodbye Osaka

When I checked out this morning it was a bittersweet moment. For one, I was glad to head to a bigger room with a shower that doesn't cost money to use and my new reservation for the last two nights was a third of the price of the average price. It's usually a $150/night hotel and I got it for $45 a night. I'm not trying to use this blog for advertising, but I have to recommend Agoda discount hotels for such a great find. Anyway, I got back my security deposit (about $40 that I had honestly forgotten about) and Kazu-san and his wife were both downstairs to thank me for spending my time there and they even offered to take my picture in front of the Dormitory when I stood around for a little while longer to take pictures.

Yes, I have heard your requests to see my living conditions, and so I was taking pictures.

Anyway, I realized that no matter how nice my hotel was, it could not be any nicer than Kazu-san and his wife were to me during my stay. If I ever come back to Osaka, even if I am not staying at the Dormitory, I plan to stop by and rent my bicycles from him. It was very sad to go knowing I won't be going back, and I didn't even run into my australian friend.

He must have been out teaching before I got up, but lately I have been telling him all about what I did every day and he has been sharing his experiences with teaching English in Japan. It was nice to talk to him and I'm sad that I missed him.

Let me clarify one more time why I'm staying in Tokyo for the last two nights. Originally I had planned to hop the Shinkansen from Osaka on the 23rd and go straight to the airport for my flight, but then I realize that my Rail Pass expires a day before my flight leaves. The train from Osaka to Tokyo without a rail pass is about $150 dollars, so I figured why not spend a night in Tokyo for less than that and already be at the airport the day of my flight?

Then, when I was planning to go to Matsumoto castle, which is an hour northwest of Tokyo, I discovered I would have to go through Tokyo anyway, and then I would spend 8 hours on a train to do that trip from Osaka. So I decided to spend a second night in Tokyo so that I could just go to the castle directly from there (tomorrow).

As it turns out, I saved more than I expected. Agoda's website hooked me up with the fanciest hotel I've ever been in, it must be 4 or 5 stars, for $45 a night, and then my landlord charged me less for my stay at the Dormitory because I was checking out two nights earlier. In all, I saved at least $80 and now I won't have to take any more money out for the rest of my trip.

The hotel I'm in now is something else. You can see the pictures here. Here's something you can't see in the pictures: the pillows are filled with goose down. Yes the hotel is fantastic. Also, I have discovered a number of really cool things that I don't think they even have in American hotels. First, I have a doorbell. And there's this switch on my end table that turns off the doorbell button that sits outside and puts a 'do not disturb' light on instead. Also, they have given me complementary slippers and japanese casual wear for my stay. One of the coolest (and greenest) innovation in my room is that in order for anything in the room to be powered, my room key has to be in a socket just inside the door. So when I leave, everything automatically shuts off. It's impossible to leave something running when you go out for the day, and waste electricity.

I got here around 6pm, after going through Narita Airport to get the shuttle bus, and I decided to scout out the area around my hotel. Narita, which is a smaller city outside tokyo, seemed at first to be a hodge-podge of a small town with big hotels. It struck me as odd that there wasn't anything around. But if you walk for about half an hour down the main road and make a couple turns, you get to a large mall (are there any small malls in Japan?) and an entertainment complex with a movie theater and an arcade. At the mall, I had an excellent bowl of curry noodles at a noodle shop. I also spilled some curry on my pants, but I just did laundry so I have enough pants.

On the strip near the huge mall there are countless restaurants, like the Mamma Pasta and a bunch of Japanese restaurants whose names I couldn't read. And some I could but couldn't translate. As you walk back towards the Garden Hotel where I'm staying, these fade into an auto parts district full of dealerships and repair shops and parts warehouses. And then you come to this:

No caption needed.

The yuletide abomination before you is a Santa-themed hotel across the street from mine. Mine looks much calmer and probably costs a lot more money. But still, somehow I think this place could only exist in Japan or maybe Las Vegas. 

Oh, and there was a fancy temple down the road that I saw looming over the tree tops. If I have time tomorrow I'll go down that way, but I still have to see Matsumoto castle and finish some shopping in Tokyo first.

Cory