{"id":51122,"date":"2025-07-13T20:57:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=51122"},"modified":"2025-08-10T23:52:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T04:52:17","slug":"osaka-day-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=51122","title":{"rendered":"Osaka Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Taiwan Day 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Almost 10 years since we last visited Taiwan and it feels like it. Over the past week, both RL and I noticed that people are generally younger. It’s not that they’ve gotten younger, it’s just that we’ve gotten older. We were young last time we were here, and now we are marching into middle aged. My heel has been hurting from a pinched nerve. My back can no longer carry as much heavy stuff without twitchy. But, I guess at least we’ve got three children to show for all those extra years of living.<\/p>\n

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\nToday is a travel day. It’s looking like a rainy start to our day, good thing we’ve got a van to take us to the high speed rail station. Would suck to start the day wet by walking to the MRT station in order to connect to the HSR station.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThroat still hurts, looks like I’ve got a viral infection instead of bacterial. With that said, I seemed to have turned the corner and it’s running its course.<\/p>\n

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\nCool green color.<\/p>\n

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\nKids watching a little last bit of TV to calm them down before we get picked up to head to airport.<\/p>\n

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\nGot picked up by a car and in a short time we were at the station.<\/p>\n

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\nBack to travel party of 5 for this leg of the trip. It feels easier to travel with a smaller group for sure.<\/p>\n

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\nBathroom break, we’ve got a lot of luggage already. And we haven’t even shopped very much yet! Eek.<\/p>\n

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\nThe train arrives. In our frenzy, we were waiting on the wrong platform, but when this colorful train pulled up right behind us, we realized that this was our train instead. I mean…same platform, just different sides. Either way, we made it.<\/p>\n

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\nChocolate bread.<\/p>\n

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\nThe telephoto lens on my phone has a different refresh rate that interferes with the refresh rate of the led message board on the train.<\/p>\n

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\nReached Taoyuan HSR, station. Now, we connect to another train to airport.<\/p>\n

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\nRL’s eyes says it all about traveling with kids.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAt the terminal. There were two old ladies standing in front of us, and one of them wasn’t paying attention when the walkway came to the end and she fell. I was right behind her and it was a pileup since we were getting pushed right onto her fallen body and her fallen luggage. I kicked her luggage out of the way and managed to avoid a pileup and having the kids behind me pile on top too. Good thing someone was able to help her get back up and she was mostly ok, just bruised ego. See kids, stop fooling around and pay attention on escalators and moving walkways.<\/p>\n

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\nCheck in was a breeze, the line was short.<\/p>\n

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\nRL getting stressed about getting past security. We’ve got plenty of time, we got here about 3 hours before our flight.<\/p>\n

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\nHeading to the lounge before our flight to hopefully find some food. Security was fast, immigration was fast, but rude. The lady who checked our passport wasn’t the nicest. Again…why aren’t people in Taiwan as nice as they used to be?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAt least we get to chill here for bit and relax now that we are at the airport.<\/p>\n

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\nTaiwan Beer on draft, yes please.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nPink flesh guava, not often I see this in Taiwan. Usually its the white guava.<\/p>\n

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\nGround pork with rice, yes please. I’m loving this lounge.<\/p>\n

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\nSeconds, now with bloodcake.<\/p>\n

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\nEveryone enjoying their lunch and chill time here.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAt our gate getting ready to board our flight. Yesterday, Air India crashed a Boeing 787…and we are flying on one today. A little unnerving, but I’m sure it’ll be ok, statistically speaking anyway.<\/p>\n

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\nFree gift to the kids on the flight.<\/p>\n

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\nDo I see a 747 hiding in that hanger?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGoodbye Taiwan. We’ve both changed, but the egg puddings haven’t. thankfully.<\/p>\n

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\nWe’ve already had lunch, but they served food again…I guess I’ll eat some of it again out of boredom.<\/p>\n

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\nJapan in sight after a relatively short flight.<\/p>\n

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\"\"
\nMade it through immigration, and as RL handed me a handful of trash to throw away, we realized that she had accidentally brought down one of the plastic dining bowls from the plane. Oops.<\/p>\n

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\nJapan!!!!<\/p>\n

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\nAlright, gotta get train tickets to Osaka. Again, times have changed so much. JR Passes are no longer a financial homerun, so we didn’t buy them this time. It also means we are no longer incentivized to only use JR trains, so now we can take any train we want with no financial penalty. Our phones have also come a really long way since almost a decade ago. Google maps now does a great job of mapping out all the public transit and immediately we noticed a lot more people being able to speak some English. We’ve heard of Japan changing to more English friendly from our other friends who have visited, and even from our visit almost a decade ago. They’ve definitely taken another step and there’s now English menus everywhere for the tickets machines.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nTrain to Namba station.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI need to look at my old pictures to see if the tickets back then had English on them. I am pretty sure many of them didn’t have any English printed on them.<\/p>\n

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\nKids said Japan doesn’t look like what they expected. They said it looks so grey…well kids, we are still in the suburbs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nReached central Osaka.<\/p>\n

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\nOur train looks like a Japanese robot from the front.<\/p>\n

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\nNow, we walk to our hotel which is a little bit of a distance, especially with all of our packs on.<\/p>\n

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\nSee, kids, there are colors and bright lights in Japan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nGlico man! Apparently the original sign was installed in 1935!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright, finally reached the street for our hotel, It’s just right up ahead.<\/p>\n

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\nHere we go.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nNice, it’s quite spacious. Done enough traveling with kids to realize that if we don’t get enough space and we are all on top of each other, everyone gets super upset and fussy. There are 4 bedrooms, so none of the kids have to share, which has always been a source of conflict in the past. This is what $687 a night gets you in Osaka semi close to Namba Station.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nPL’s room. This was the smallest room and most cozy and all the kids fought to have this room actually.<\/p>\n

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\nLittle KL’s room.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCL’s room. And I forgot to include a photo of me and RL’s room, but it basically looks like CL’s room with two twin beds next to each other.<\/p>\n

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\nEnsuite bathroom of the master bedroom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nKids’ bathroom.<\/p>\n

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\nA small kitchen and a fridge.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nEven has a balcony, though, we ended up not using it this whole stay due to just being so busy.<\/p>\n

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\nImmediately after dropping off our luggage, we left to look for dinner. Everyone’s hungry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFound a sushi spot close by. Our server was super nice, to the point where the kids were like, “why is he being so nice?” Part Japanese culture, part just being nice I guess.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nDig in kids, nothing super special but still delicious nonetheless.<\/p>\n

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\nNom nom nom.<\/p>\n

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\nThe adults do get to eat nicer. Yum.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis will do, this will do nicely.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe chef showed the kids his carvings form what I believe is squid or maybe cuttlefish bone? Also he made miniature origami.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThen a Family Mart visit to pick up some water and snacks.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSo Japan, prepackaged ice in cups.<\/p>\n

Been a long travel day. Got the kids back in the room, shower then bedtime.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Osaka Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Taiwan Day 7. Almost 10 years since we last visited Taiwan and it feels like it. Over the past week, both RL and I noticed that people are generally younger. It’s not that they’ve gotten younger, it’s just … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53414,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-51122","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51122"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53455,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51122\/revisions\/53455"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}