Today started out the day in typical Toyoko Inn fashion, which is to head down to the ground floor to rub elbows with businessmen in the small lobby area to eat a Toyoko Inn breakfast. On today's breakfast menu was croissants, bread rolls, sausages, tinned spaghetti (which is about as un-Japanese and I can imagine), corn soup and salad (read: lettuce) with dressing (read:water), along with coffee and juice served in teeny tiny cups not much bigger than shot gla...

We, finally, are in Osaka. It is midnight, and having lost 2 hours in the process of travel means that we've been up for 23 hours so far. That incident with the taxi seems like it was days ago, not just earlier today. Jetstar Business class was again, really really good. I still maintain that for flights of a decent length, I wouldn't go back to economy class. Jetstar economy class anyway. Despite having the boarding call pull us away from our comfy lounges,...

Home now. So another Japan trip has come and gone in a whirlwind of crowded trains, amazing scenery and sleeping on the floor. Today was, without a doubt, the most painful day of the trip. Not emotionally painful, because we're well and truly ready to come home, but painful because today, and by extension yesterday (since both days have blurred into one) was simply travel, and not much else. After collecting the last of our things from the floor of the Co-...

This is the last entry for the trip being written on Japanese soil. This time tomorrow night we'll be probably sitting in the plane ready to commence take-off for a painful 8+ hour flight to the gold coast. I'm still debating whether to take up Jetstar's business class upgrade offer for the trip home. It is a lot of money to spend just for single a better night's sleep. It will be a short an uninteresting entry today, because we basically packed, shopped and re...

Woke up on the floor again. Normally this would be considered unusual, but it is something we're getting increasingly used to. So far the Co-op inn has been great. It is probably the most quiet of all of the hotels we've stayed at so far. Being on the 9th (and top) floor, and being down one corner of the hotel with no neighbours probably has something to do with it. So far my only complaint with the Co-op inn is the room air conditioning. On heat mode, it has o...