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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

Monday 8 January 2007

Crazy weather and cancelled trains (again)

We're back home from our Nara/Hiroshima/Osaka trip, but we almost could not return back home yesterday due to bad weather (again!). We were blessed with wonderful weather all throughout the five days of our trip, until the day we were scheduled to come home. Bad winds and snow yesterday on our train's route back home from Osaka meant that all morning and early arvo services were cancelled, and once again we had to deal with the headache of changing our tickets and booking accommodation for an extra night. Rob's first reaction was laughter. Mine wasn't.

So we hung around the Kita (north) district of Osaka city (the 'business' part) carrying our heavy backpacks for about two hours before we decided to head back into the Minami (south) area (the 'commercial/fashion/hip-young-people's' part of Osaka city a few kms south of Kita) where we were staying. Before buying our train fare for Shinsaibashi I thought we ought to check whether train services to home had resumed, and thankfully they had! Yay! So then we had to deal with the headache of changing our tickets again, cancelling our hotel's reservation and figuring out how we were going to get to our apartment from the train station. We finally got home late last night.

It seems like we really don't have much luck with weather whenever we go on trips around Japan! At least not on the last day anyway. Rob mentioned that we didn't have weather trouble last week in Nagano, but I pointed that Kim and Richie were travelling with us. In hindsight, aside from having to deal with the stress of not having much cash in our pockets (most ATMs are shut on weekends in Japan, and the ones that are open charge a fee) and the problem of the language barrier, it wasn't really that bad.

I have loads to show 'n tell about our trip, so keep your eyes on this journal!

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