Sunday morning the guesthouse manager loaded our luggage in his very spiffy compact van and drove us to Kitaoji
Eki. We thanked him for all his help and kindness--he had helped us book a hotel for that time, and by helped, I mean he pretty much did all the work--and then we said goodbye. This time we took the
right train from the Kyoto Eki to Kansai International Airport, unlike when we came to Kyoto, and took a taxi to our hotel. The drive didn't take that long from the airport to the hotel, but it was still a bit expensive; the trip was deceptively short due to the long, long bridge from the airport to Osaka-proper.
We mostly rested at the hotel, although we went to check out the mall right down the road. I don't think you see too much in the way of malls here--at least, not like those in America. Japan tends to build up, not out and across. Still, this one wasn't unlike an American mall: a couple of floors, but decently sized in the horizontal direction. I tried curry for the first time at dinner, which really reminds me of Cincinnati chili for some reason. I suppose it's the combination of sweet and spicy. Anyways, it's definitely a new favorite. The mall had a slightly different collection of stores than you might expect at a mall. Clothing stores of course, but there was also a
hyaku-en shop, a dollar store basically, a grocery store, and a jewelry-crafting shop. I couldn't understand any of the people in Osaka though...I suppose they were all speaking Osaka-ban, their dialect, though.
After dinner, we watched some more crazy Japanese tv that evening, tail end of a sumo tournament and an obstacle course game show, and went to bed early--needed to be up at 3 in the morning to be ready to call a taxi to go to the airport at 4. We managed to get up early enough, got to the airport in more than plenty of time. (KIX does
not open at 4 am, like we were told, but at 5. So there was quite a bit of waiting, but at least we weren't running late.) So, I saw Robert and Gerry off at the airport--my goodbyes were not manly and tearless--and managed to make back to Kyoto Eki, then Kitaoji Eki, and then to the bus stop in front of the university.
Then I realized I didn't know which way to go to get to the I-house.
