[Blog] Voyage to Osaka [ and to Kyoto ] (Patreon)

It's been a while since I've written long travel blogs but here goes nothing!

I probably should have written all this some time ago, ideally right after returning from the trip but somehow I just couldn't focus on writing anything for a while so it took some time for me to sit down and gather my thoughts.

After watching countless youtubers showing a wonderful cruise trip from Busan to Osaka, I told myself that I simply had to try it out for myself so I made plans towards booking a ticket to go on this cruise as well. I've traveled countless times by air but this was my first time traveling by ship so I was quite excited.

I suppose my travel started the moment I first got to Busan metro stations.

There's so much stuff to see and talk about in Busan as well but I'll leave that for another time.

I got to Busan by train and this place was MASSIVE! So much shops, places to eat and I lost count of how many cafe there was inside the station. Likewise there was so many people inside even during weekdays when it shouldn't have been as busy. It's probably nowhere near as crowded as Seoul but you really do start to think where do so many people flock from to reach here.

It was relatively easy to find the port where I would need to go from here.

As a matter of fact it was literally a 10 minute walking distance from within the station across a bridge with big signs in English telling you where to go to reach the port.

Just some snaps I've taken as I walked toward the port. You can see it from the distance, that wavy roof in the distance.

and a snap of the cruise I'd go on. Somehow it doesn't look as picturesque as I remember seeing on various YouTube channels. Then again, maybe that's normal considering this vessel is already 20 years old.

Honestly, the check in procedure is pretty much the same as what you can expect from boarding a flight. They check your passport, luggage and do a walk in x-ray and all that you can expect in an airport. Only difference was you were boarding a ship.

And Aboard we go!

And some snaps of the cabin I stayed in.

I had some paranoia about seasickness since I heard it was pretty common and in some cases they were really bad for some individuals. But surprisingly I didn't experience them throughout my journey from Busan to Osaka. Have any of you had seasickness? I'm kinda curious to know what signs you'd see if you were experiencing it.

Here is the view from my cabin. I splurged a little bit to get the ones with a window so I can enjoy the view as the ship took off. It was interesting! to say the least. I think I took a good nap as it took off since it was a pretty long train ride to get to Busan and checking in took a while too so I was pretty tired by the time I got to my cabin.

I explored around the ship once I woke up from my nap.

This was a cafe located on the top floor of the cruise ship. If I was still a digital nomad, I think I could have seen myself setting up my laptop to work here for a few hours before meal time. From all the time I passed by, I didn't really see many people using this place. I didn't take a good look at the menu but if it was anything like the one I saw from the cabin, I would assume it's the typical snacks you see being served in Asian bars.  Now that I think about it, I probably should have come here more often for the view and the breeze instead of the VIP lounge located just under the Bridge.

There was a small convenience store located inside the main hall area. Interestingly there were no employees, you just grab what you want and pay for it on your way out. There might not have been an employee but there were a lot of CCTV camera to make sure nobody walks out without paying haha. I had a look around and I saw many Korean and Japanese sweets, instant noodles, alcohol but nothing really I wanted to grab. In general, the stock up mainly on things with a long shelf life.

Personally I think I was craving for some light salad or yakisoba bread you see in anime.

Right next to that was this sign that led you to the corridor where you can enjoy a public bath. Not quite the onsen experience but it's probably the closest you can get on a cruise really. If I recall, I went there four times because I just really enjoy soaking in hot water.

There were other interesting areas in the ship but I didn't really partake in any of it. Here's a few snaps I took just as I passed by them.

Karaoke room. I think you need to call up the front desk to reserve the space in advance to use it.

Sushi Bar didn't operate at all when I was on board. According to the employees it's been out of business for some time. Duty-Free Shop, I didn't bother checking it out but from a few glance, it seemed to only sell liquor. As for the Therapy House experience, it seemed a little overpriced hahaha so I didn't bother.

It became night as I explored the ship again after dinner and they announced we were already in Japanese waters between Ube and Nakatsu as we passed through Fukuoka.

Hello Japan!!

At the time of taking the evening scene above, I thought we had actually arrived in Japan much earlier than announced but it would actually take another 14 hours to reach Osaka through the winding straits. But that's pretty much all the photos I took from the ship so I think this is a good time to talk about the pros and cons of taking a cruise.

PROS

Unique experience traveling on a ship
Unlike a flight you can sleep lying down
Spa and Sauna inside the ship (At least for this cruise)
Buffet options for Dinner and Breakfast
Great ocean view when you wander out onto the deck

CONS
Much more expensive than a flight
Journey takes much more longer than a flight
Some of the food options are a hit or miss
You can't turn off the air-conditioning in the cabins
Cabin air felt extremely dry and you get thirsty
Seasickness (If you get them I heard it's horrible)

To add to the above, I think if you have sensitive skin, it might not be a good idea to hop into the spa and sauna since you don't really know how often they clean it and how many people might have used it before you. And one last tip I can give you regarding this cruise in particular is to take some food with you onboard. The options at the convenience store in the cruise weren't all that great and you can find way better selections at convenience stores in Korea or Japan so make sure you have a good browse through the shops and buys some snacks. I did this for my return trip where I bought a convini sandwich and some canned coffee (you can get free coffee at the VIP lounge but I highly don't recommend it)

Woke up following morning and made my way out of the cruise ship as I took my first steps in Japan. Little did I know at the time but the journey so far would have been the easiest part of my long journey to Kyoto haha.

And my god it was a huge headache too! I hadn't fully grasped at just how complicated the metro system in Japan would be in comparison to Korea's system where you can just buy one ticket and crossover to the next train if you need to. No, Japan's system is you buy one ticket per each metro line/route and once you get to the next station, you need to exit the station and buy another ticket that matches the line you'll be crossing over for the next train to get to your destination.

So I got to Osaka and got a little bit lost but eventually managed to find where I needed to go to find my next train, the Hankyuu line. My original plan was to take the fastest Hankyuu train to Kyoto which has less stops but I made a slight mistake and took a longer route.

Not that I minded of course since it gave me more time to enjoy the scenery.

I'm pretty sure I was running purely on willpower by this point haha. There was ALOT of walking so my feet were screaming at me to go get some much needed rest. The last photo was probably taken on random as I got off the final stop in Kyoto and was making my way towards my lodgings.

I was also really hungry by this point so I found a nice little curry place in a third floor building by browsing through google maps.

It was quite soupy and easy to digest on top of it being very yummy~!

I was really lucky at the time since I didn't have to wait outside. When I sat down, there was a huge line forming outside the small curry place that only had enough seats for roughly a dozen guests.

So more photos of Kyoto's streets above. I'll have a lot more in my future blogs but the first impression I had was that Kyoto had a lot of modern and traditional buildings mixed together in between. It actually looks fitting and neat that they went to lengths to preserve traditional aesthetics of their culture in buildings.

I noticed it immediately when I was eating my curry but shops in general are numerous and they are very tiny compared to what we're used to seeing in restaurants elsewhere. It's definitely tiny but somehow it all magically fits everything you actually need to accommodate guests. This was the case for almost all the stores I've seen during my stay. If you come from the US, you guys will definitely agree with me here that everything looks smaller. Their cars look smaller, the roads and shops looks smaller to the counterparts in US yet at the same time, you just can't shake off the feeling that it looks almost natural and very very efficient that way.

I'll probably touch upon this more in my next blog entry as I explore Kyoto.

For now, I have some pictures of the mall streets that were relatively close to the lodgings that I wanted to share with you guys to end this blog entry.

Teramachi or Teramachidori. This was actually a historical street in Kyoto. Originally it was destroyed sometime during Onin civil war that took place in 1467 to 1477 and it was later reconstructed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi who instructed a number of buddhist temples to be moved to this area. It's said that Hideyoshi did this to protect the city from invasions since most invaders would flock to sacred temples in search of high value loot and by lining up temples in one street, it would essentially be buying some time for the rest of the city in the event that there would be an invasion.

Nowadays the place has a few temples and shrines as you walk through the street but it's mostly other shops that lines the stretch of street that runs on the east side of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, between Kawaramachi Street (east side) and Gokomachi Street (west side).

Right at the entrance there was this as well which if my memory serves was a Samurai and Ninja museum. Honestly if I had more time in Kyoto, I probably would have checked it out but on this particular night I was so tired.

Me and my family decided we'll keep it simple and settle for a Takoyaki dinner so we lined up here. You can't really see it from this angle but there was like less than dozen seating available here as well. Maybe there was additional seating outside it on the other side of the wall but we were super lucky when it was our turn to order and there was just enough seat for my family.

Bottoms up! Just make sure you wait a little before you dig in because you might burn your mouth since it's freshly cooked and hot off the pans. And expected of local delicacy, they didn't charge for additional Katsuobushi flakes you see on top of the takoyaki.

Let me tell you it was really good!! Just thinking about it again makes me want to go get some right now haha. Lots of people had it with a pint of cold beer next to us. I think it would have gone down well now that I think about it. Maybe another day I'll try it with beer but this night I decided not to order them.

Yup, more walking and taking snaps of small shops in Teramachi street. God knows how my legs managed to keep up this night.

Found some Uni that Ryza would probably have turned into bombs had she obtained them.

I think this was a shinto shrine. There were a few along this street. No signs of Miko.

Found these Genshin metal pins out of nowhere and to nobody's surprise most of them were featuring Inazuma character hahaha jeez I wonder why xD.

I think that's enough for one day of blogging. Looking back at the photos makes me (and my feet) remember all that intense walking I did that day. I'll come back to Teramachi again in a later entry since there were places I wanted to visit like Animate and Melonbooks in particular.