Arrival in Japan (Day 1)

This is our itinerary for the day.

 

But things are not final until they happened. This is what actually transpired:

The Cebu Pacific flight was delayed by an hour (such a normal occurrence), which of course delayed our arrival in Osaka. Upon arrival at around 9:05 pm, we had to wait in queue for immigration clearance for almost an hour, so by the time we came out of customs, it was already a few minutes past 10 pm. We had to go directly to the JR Ticket Office to exchange our JR Passes and do the seat reservations. JR Ticket Office is in the Kansai Airport Station. You will have to get out of the terminal building and walk across to the Airport Station.

Here is the 360 panoramic view of the Kansai Airport Station.

We spent 40 minutes in the JR Ticket Office as there are 7 of us, and the officer had to do the seat reservations for all.

Everybody except for myself have 7-day JR Pass (I have 14-day JR Pass), but they will only start using it on Day 4 (January 28). The start date and end date is indicated in the JR Pass, and this is the one that the JR Stations Officers check.

Seat reservation is for all the bullet trains and limited express trains that we will take. I prepared the list and handed it over to the officer, and I think it made things a lot easier for him and for me. He just pointed out that the Limited Express Harutaka from Kanazawa to Echigo-Yuzawa will be using a non-JR track, so we will have to pay some surcharges. If you are going to Kanazawa after 13th of March, then you can take the new bullet train for only 2 and a half hours.

You might be wondering why we have two destinations on the same date (Jan 28), we split into two group on that day which I will post later on.

We also changed our money at the nearby money changer which was still open after 11 pm.

So anyway, by 11 pm, Haruka Express to Shin-Osaka and Tennoji is no longer in operation. We had to take a local line to Tennoji which took about 35 to 40 minutes. And even if I already know that there are no more trains running when we arrived in Tennoji, I still asked a station officer on how to get to Nishinakajima-minamigata station, and as told that we have no choice but to take cab.

From our itinerary (printed and digital), we showed the address to the cab driver. The first cab took 3 passengers. The second one, though it was okay for him to take 4 passengers, our big luggage cannot fit into his trunk. So in the end, we had to take cab. 20 minutes and 5,000 yen later, we arrived in our hotel.

Our hotel is Hotel Consort in Nishinakajima. On it's left (when facing the hotel) is the Nishinakajima-minagata Station of the Midosuji Line while on the back is the Minamikata Station of the Hankyu Kyoto Line.