Japan in Fast Forward Finale

The next day we gave our Dad the decision of choosing where to go next. Apparently he had enough of temples/castles because of the unfortunate Kyoto incident so off to the Osaka Aquarium we went. Being a saturday, slew of grade school students came in droves to press their noses against the glass sheets separating us humans from the others.It was your typical aquarium with your token big fish-small fish, turtles and what-nots. On the walk back to the train station, we passed by a souveneir store where the shop owner was japanese but spoke fluent tagalog.She entertained us with her quips: "Mura na yan" or the eternally famous : Wala nang tawad." My mom and sisters bought fans and refrigerator magnets out of amusement.
Time being limited by the fact that we had to go back to Hakata that afternoon, we settle for the next best thing to going to Universal Studios Japan, we took pictures just outside its gates and beside the big revolving globe.Nice....The trip back to Hakata was uneventful as we blissfully slept the whole way.
Sunday came and it was time for them to go. A sad occassion but our spirits were still up and kept counting who among the filipinos in the airport had brought the most boxes of cup noodles....I think the winner was 12. I wonder how many grams of salt those had????

Japan in Fast Forward Part Deux

As we arrived at the Kinkakujin Temple, we only had a few moments to take pictures before it started drizzling and we had to take cover inside the "tourist trap" stores with a bunch of Thai tourists. We passed the time tasting the various omiyage they were selling and which all suspiciously resembled the taste of espasol.Oh well....
After another arduous bus trip back to Kyoto station ( we had a running joke : no wonder there were a lot of people on the bus; tumanda na sila lahat sa tagal ng biyahe!) Thankfully the Kodama Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka was fast enough and we were in the cozy confines of our hotel near JR Osaka in no time.
With our parents too tired to venture out the rest of the day (It was only 4 PM !!!), we made an excuse that we were just going shopping to the nearby underground mall. Little did they know that were were going to Rinku Premium Outlet which took an hour by train from JR Osaka Station (or a station away from Kansai Airport). Thankfully, they all had JR Passes so I was Antonio Pineda for a day ( or two). Rinku is much bigger than Tosu (obviously) and had higher end brands. We were so content that a giant Gap outlet beckoned us upon descending from the train station. We had to speed shop again because the stores closed promptly at 8PM. We were dead tired when we arrived at the hotel but it was worth the trip as can be seen from the sister's happy faces and their bags of goodies.

To be concluded