23rd October 2018 (Tuesday)
Today, I checked out from Daiya Ryokan. Shops and restaurants opened late and arriving early in Osaka early meant having nowhere to go. Hence, I took my time checking out.
With my back pain having failed to subside and carrying two pieces of luggage, I had to scuttle my plan to go to Shin-Osaka Station by Shinkansen and taking the Midosuji Subway Line to Umeda Subway Station, before walking to JR Osaka Station. It was not worth aggravating my pain and facing additional hassle.
At Kyoto Station, I went to the Central Gate. By using the ICOCA card, I passed through the ticket gate, and followed the direction to the platform/ track of the JR train going to Osaka Station. There were the Local, Rapid, Special Rapid, Limited Express trains, etc and commuters could decide on the trains they preferred to take. The differences were the number of stops they made but the fares were the same. There were no Shinkansen here. As you could see from the clock, I had four minutes to make it to Platform/ Track 7 if I wanted to take the Limited Express train departing at 9:36 a.m. Hence, I decided to take the Special Rapid train at Platform/ Track 5 departing at 9:45 a.m.
The trip to JR Osaka Station was a quick 28 minutes journey, arriving at 10:13 a.m. on the Special Rapid train.
When you travelled and was too pre-occupied with finding your way, you totally forgot to do things which you ought to do. That was what happened when I arrived at Osaka Station. I was too pre-occupied with finding the direction to Tanimachi Subway Station. Even though the ticket gates were there staring at me, I totally forgot that I had not exited from the arrival area. Instead, I went in search of the direction to Tanimachi Subway Station and found myself unable to leave the enclosed area. I was wondering where the exit was! I only came to my senses when I back-tracked and saw the ticket gates again. Yeah! I had not exited from the arrival area!!!
After exiting through the ticket gate, I took the South Gate direction, because that was the direction to Subway Tanimachi Line also. My hostel was Sinsei Osaka Guesthouse and to go there, I needed to take Tanimachi subway to Tenjinbashi-suji 6-Chome Station, and walked to the hostel.
The south side and north side of the station are linked by passages on the ground floor (first floor in American English), from South Central Gate, not South Gate, to North Central Gate and on the third floor (fourth floor in American English, i.e. one floor above the railway platforms/ tracks). It was on the ground floor along the central passageway linking south and north that I chose to store my two pieces of luggage.
Since I had a lot of time in my hand and as planned before arriving in Osaka, I would explore Osaka Station to familiarise myself with the layout to make my excursions to Namba and Osaka Airport in the days ahead easier.
Today too, I met two lovely Japanese ladies. They really lived up to the well-known Japanese culture of being polite, courteous and helpful.
On my way from Osaka Station to my guesthouse, I needed to take the Tanimachi Subway Line. At JR Osaka Station itself, there were signs pointing to the direction to Tanimachi Line. This was all in the basement. However, the Tanimachi signs disappeared abruptly along the way. I was lost and approached a young lady for help. She did not know the direction too, and tried to find the direction on an Apps on her mobile phone. It didn't help. She went to ask someone but came back unable to offer me help. She asked me to find my way (if I understood her correctly), and I was thinking, "Oh, not too helpful!" She walked away and I went my way. Still having failed to see the Taninimachi direction sign, I looked around hoping to find someone I could ask for the direction when I spotted her again. She was waving at me and came towards me. She had found help and asked me to follow the direction sign to Higashi-Umeda Station. Yeah, she was right! How could that slip my mind! In my planning, I knew I needed to go to Higashi-Umeda Station to take the Tanimachi Line. How could I have forgotten that!!! She quickly showed me the way to the intersection ahead and asked me to turn left. She left after that, but not after making sure that I went in the right direction.
Arriving at Tenjinbashi 6-Chome Station, I followed where most of the commuters went. There was not a sign showing the exit to Tenjinbashi-suji shopping street. I stopped a lady. She could speak a few words in English. I told her I wanted to go to Tenjinbashi-suji. She walked quickly to a station official manning the ticket gates and came back to tell me to take Exit 8. She inquired why I wanted to go to Tenjinbashi and I replied, "Shopping". At that time, I had not exited the station yet. I wanted to go another way when I saw "8" on a signage but she quickly pointed to me to exit first, then to follow the "8" direction sign.
Thanks to the two ladies, I did not have to carry my additional pieces of luggage around for long to search for the right directions.
For readers' information, across the road from Exit 8 were Exit 4 and Exit 5.
Tenjinbashi-suji 6-Chome Station Exit 8 was right beside the shopping street with the same name. However, I would check into my guest house first before returning later to explore the shopping street. Using my Garmin eTrex20x, the direction to the guesthouse was zig-zagging across the map. It did not look right and I had to use my Google map on my mobile phone to show me the way to the guesthouse. It was a kilometer walk, and it felt far with the two pieces of luggage I was carrying.
Arriving at Sinsei Osaka Guesthouse, I followed the instruction to enter the building. I was supposed to enter the password on a keypad at the door but I did not see any numeric keys on the keypad. Anyway, I pressed it but nothing happened. How was I to enter the building then? Maybe, I was pressing at the wrong keypad. I looked around. There was no other keypad. There was no door bell. I pressed the same keypad again. Nothing happened. Then the door opened and a lady was standing there. I told her I could not find the keypad. She showed me the same keypad and pressed the cover to activate it. The numeric keys lighted up. Oh! What did I do earlier? I was asked to go in and to leave my shoes at the shoe rack. When I asked her how I should pay for the room, she told me that I could just pay her instead of following the instructions which she sent me via email. She was the owner of the property. She happened to be there at that time as she was doing her housekeeping and she told me that should I have problems, I could just email her! She explained that she was not staying at the guest house but elsewhere. Basically, the whole guest house was left to the guest house customers. Pretty trusting of guests!
Although my back pain was still there, I still wanted to check out Tenjinbashi-suji shopping street. The sky was dark and looked like it was going to rain. I took an umbrella from the guest house before leaving. On the way, I lost my way and had to retrace my steps using my Garmin before arriving at the street.
I would be looking for dinner at Tenjinbashi-suji but there was nothing interesting to eat. What a disappointment. Instead, I had some finger food/ snacks.
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