Reported by Diaz
An inspiration for those who long to visit Japan
Yokoso! That is the phrase that you will find in the airport of Japan to welcome tourists and I would like to welcome you to my article here, a bit story of my previous trip to Japan. Yes, Japan! I've been dreaming about this place eversince I watched Kenshin Himura in action on tv :)) not only that actually because I got my love of Japan also from Ghibli movies. I always only dreamt about Japan, always wanting to go but never done anything to achieve that. It was a stroke of fate that I suddenly have this exploding desire to go no matter what (it's another story ;) ). So to cut short, I planned everything in the last months of 2015 and decided to go on October 2016 (no reasons, it just that I could take my annual leaves starting Oct). I tried to make the itinerary but it was not easy. I actually don't have any idea about which places that I should visit once I got there. So, I stumbled on this blog Ga Nekat Ga Berangkat and found that the owner shares an itinerary of Japan trip. I downloaded it and modified it. Then, I tell like almost all of my friend about my plan to go to Japan. Please mark that I did not do that to show off. I believe that the more people have thought about me going there then the more that the universe conspires to help me achieve that despite whether they support my idea or not (and I really achieved it! ;) )
So itinerary has been made, next thing is to make the visa. I browsed on the web about Visa to Japan and fortunately I read on the Japanese Embassy website that since 2014, Indonesian could visit Japan without Visa! ( my heart burst with joy :)) ) But it doesn't mean that you could just fly straight ahead to Japan and enter the country without any permit! You have to pre-register your e- passport at the embassy to get Visa Waiver Sticker. So for you who still have a regular passport, you have to make a new e-passport first and it was quite expensive (but it was really worth it).
So I went to make e-passport at the immigration in south jakarta and visit the embassy to get the Visa Waiver. The process is easy and only took 2 to 3 working days. You only have to bring your e- passport and fill a form. Voila! my e-passport has been given the Visa Waiver! With it you could visit Japan anytime you would like with maximum 15 days every visit for 3 years or until the passport expired whichever comes first. Everytime I finished a process, I'm always grateful to God and say thank you.
Next is to buy the flight ticket! I bought my return ticket (Jakarta-Osaka and Tokyo-Jakarta) for 6 million rupiah. I took Garuda Indonesia for departing and Air Asia for returning. It was a really good deal and I bought it through online travel agent. Garuda Indonesia is the best flight experience I have had so far. What I can't stand is when I have to transit in Denpasar and have to queuing a really long and slow line for checking in (2 hours of queuing!!!). But all of that is paid off thankfully. The flight to Japan was really comfortable and the attendants are so nice.
Also, I have to book for my train ticket and bus ticket in Japan. Because I will arrive first in Osaka, I bought the Osaka Yokoso Ticket from Osaka ni Yokoso! consisting of Kansai to Namba train ticket and one day pass Osaka Subway ticket.
Also because I want to visit Tokyo, I have to search for a transportation for Kyoto to Tokyo. If you are filthy rich you could just ride on Shinkansen with just 1,6 million rupiah per person, but because I am on low budget I just took the WILLER Night Bus which is far more cheaper and comfortable as well with only 800 thousands rupiah. Those are all the transportation ticket which I could buy from Indonesia before departing. my list to be done has been fulfilled which are e-passport, Visa Waiver, Flight Ticket, Hotel Reservation, and Train & Bus Ticket. It is time for me to finally go!
I depart from Soekarno Hatta International Airport on Terminal 3 ultimate. This brand new terminal is really modern and has amazing design. Though not many tenants already there, but it is quite lively. The waiting room before boarding has this huge glass window so you could watch the sunset and planes arriving and departing. I depart from Jakarta and transit in Denpasar to Osaka.
As I wrote before, I queued for a long time almost 2 hours when I transit in Denpasar because there are so many Japanese returning home from Bali Vacation. During my flight to Osaka, I watched Finding Dory from the in-flight movie selection. Pretty good stuff to kill the time.
First Day
When I arrived, you can imagine how excited I was. I finally land my feet on the land of the rising sun :p.
When I arrived at the imigration, the lady officer asked "Are you alone?" "yes i am" then she looked at my passport and looked on each pages. I knew exactly what she had in mind, perhaps she were thinking about this "This child alone, rarely go overseas, first time in Japan and want to visit 4 cities in 7 day?". Then she asked me "Do you have any friends or relatives in Japan?" actually at that time I do not have any friend or relative in Japan but just to make things smoothly I answered "Yes, I have friends in Tokyo". Finally after that she gave me the entry permit sticker to stay for 15 days and I was very anxious :)).Yokatta... welcome to Japan!
That was what I thought but when I arrived in Namba Station suddenly my phone could not connect at all to the internet! (damn you Tlkmsl) So I rush to the tourist information center and asked where I could buy a local sim card for internet or renting wifi. They reffered me to the BIC Camera (an electronic department store).
so I went there but it is a reeeeaaallll struggle just to ask information regarding the sim card for internet (they could not speak english). But in the end I finally bought Freetel Internet Sim Card (the staff said it is namba wan in japan) and it is true and much cheaper than telkomsel and wifi rent. The signal is good also.
Yeaa after that internet struggle I went to visit Osaka Castle.. Osaka Castle is a Japanese castle in Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan. The castle is one of Japan's most famous landmarks and it played a major role in the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Now it serves as Museum where you can learn history of feudal era in Japan. Surely it is beautiful and I tried the Green Tea Ice Cream which was really delicious :).
After Osaka Castle I went to Osaka Tenmangu Shrine. This is my first shrine visit here.
So I do what other people do at the shrine. A lot of things I did on the first day but I don't want to write everything (tired) so after spending the whole day in the city I went to the hotel to check in. The hotel was very clean and have good facility for such low budget hotel. Oh because I booked the single sleeping pod with no bathroom and toilet, I have to use the shared toilet and shared public bath. NOW this is very awkward for me because I have to be naked together with others from the locker room. But because anyone else seems don't matter at all so I thought the hell with that then just go naked and go in. I don't have to tell you what I did inside right? They have this large hot bathtub with a bit of city view so after walking hundreds of mile in Osaka it was a very good relaxation.
Before I went to sleep, I'd like to have some dinner so I went to this area called Shinsekai. It's around the tsutenkaku tower, one of the main attraction in Osaka.
Shinsekai is famous for being food district and home of the Spa World. I don't really know what to try so I just picked a random restaurant and tried the yakisoba.
I ordered this really delicious seafood yakisoba. The owner does not speak english but he provides english menu. I have to make sure that I ordered the non-pork menu so it's a good think that I learnt a bit of Japanese back in the days. Thus, my first day here is ended.
The next day, I woke up early like at 6 in the morning and went out of the hotel in 7. My itinerary told me to go to Kobe so I went there because of that. Because Kobe is like very far from Osaka so I have to bought another train ticket. I went to Umeda station and bought the Hankyu Railway 2 day Pass to reach Kobe at the tourist information center. You have to show your passport to eligible for buying the ticket. Here is the ticket.
Umeda station is the first huge and busy train station I have ever seen. There are so many people and they walked like ridiculously fast! (why not chill man)... I almost got hit by the hordes of people many time.
Anyway, the train to Kobe was surprisingly very nice. I meant the train. I really admired the Japanese for their obsession with cleanliness. It's hard to find something that is not clean and tidy here.
So... I have finally arrived in Kobe...
First thing that I did was to search for where I could buy the Kobe City Loop Bus one day pass. My itinerary doesn't have any information about that so I asked the local who speak a very little english about it (using google translate) and she told me that I could buy it inside the bus. So yeah, here is the inside of the bus.
You could see on the picture above that there is this Bus Girl, she gave information about Kobe, attend to the passengers needs and act as a cashier as well. She really does have a super cute voice :p. Now my next destination is Nunobiki Herb Garden located up in the hill. It was not in my itinerary but the bus girl with her super cute voice recommended me to go there. I could not resist such kawaii influence on me so yes I took the recommendation.
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