We are back home in Osaka!
After some slight inconveniences, we managed to get to Osaka in one piece. On the night before, I decided it would be nice not to haul some things I bought all the way to Osaka, so I headed off to the main Post Office in Tokyo from the apartment around 20:00. This office is open throughout the night, so in case you want to mail something at three in the morning, you are able to; TNT, eat your heart out!
I just put my laundry in the dryer, and I figured that by taking the subway and addressing the packages beforehand, I would be back within an hour to pluck my clothes out of the machine, fold it and pack it for the journey to Osaka.
Boy, was I wrong.
When I arrived at Tokyo station, it was around 20:45, as I met one of our co-travellers on the way to the subway station, who had some questions about the trip to Osaka. Took 15 minutes.
5 minutes after arrival in Tokyo, I was at the Post Office. To my surprise, it turned out that Japan Post was in the middle of remodelling the main Post Office, and as a result, the office was closed!
Fortunately, they had put up a map with branches nearby which took over the services, the 24h-branch was relatively close by and I knew where to find it.
I didn't really want to haul my ass and shipments back into the subway, so I went walkies.
At around 21:30 (I walked a good kilometre and a half), I finally found the branch I was looking for, and I could get started on sending the boxes, only to wait in the queue to get the boxes weighed first.
In order to be eligible for Small Packet SAL, your package must be within certain dimensions and below 2kg.
After I got it all sorted, the clock already passed the 22:00-mark.
Walking to Tokyo Station again took 10 minutes, where I tried to get a Shinkansen ticket to Shin Osaka for the next day. Though luck; all seats were fully booked from 9:00 until 15:00, so I would have to try my luck on the unreserved cars.
When I got to the ticket gate, a few Russian tourists asked me for help since the JR employee at the ticket gate couldn't understand and they needed a taxi.
So I assured them and walked them towards another gate where I knew there would be taxi's close by, which took me another 10 minutes.
In the end, I arrived at the apartment around 23:30, about two hours later than projected.
The trip to Osaka went smoothly; I found a seat in an unreserved car and rode in relative comfort towards Osaka; one of my homes away from home.
Osaka is a cool and laid back city, and this is the sixth time I spend some time here.
By sheer coincidence, I met Erik, one of my fellow students from Japanese class last year. No idea how, but we just finished the check-in for everyone, and we were waiting for our chance to take the elevator to our floor.
He knew about this apartment building through me and decided he would sleep here for a few nights before continuing his journey to Nagasaki.
Since the 9th is Rob's birthday, we went over to Oude Kaas and have dinner there. We invited Erik along as well. Rob got a special birthday pancake, and we sang him a birthday song. :P
Good stuff.
Tomorrow, Matijs and I will go to Nara.
Cheers, K.