Good Morning From The Land Of The Rising Sun...

Good Morning from the Land Of The Rising Sun...

Our first morning in Japan began really early. The sun rises quite early here. It was quite bright by 6AM - the bright sunrays filtered into our room through the drapes and woke me up. That for sure wasn't a happy situation given that we slept at 2.30AM!

But the sun does energize and make you active in ways more than one...

And our portable wifi router rental - "Pocket WiFi" got delivered to us. This will help us stay connected on the go...

For a nominal fee this is indeed a luxury to have - we used this for the first time in Istanbul and found it so useful. You needn't buy a sim card when you land. This is so much more convenient and you can connect multiple devices to it...

Catching up on the day's news - a rapprochement between Japan and Russia holds promise in light of a weakening United States presence in the region and the emergence of a big bully in the region. Frankly, not many will be too happy with the rise of Japan, militarily, given what happened in the early 1900s leading up to the Second World War...

In other news, the front page photo talked about canines being liberated from a dog farm in Korea, where they were being reared for meat! The liberated canines will now find their way to the United States. It is just so amusing how both Japan and South Korea share such a mutual animosity that they can't stop taking potshots at each other!

Converting money into Japanese yen gives a comforting feeling - one Indian Rupee yields about 1.6 JPY. But that's the end of it. By the time you take a taxi or buy a coffee, you realise how expensive Japan really is. The 3 kilometre taxi ride from Herbis to our hotel in Dojimahama cost us almost JPY 3000! Even Korea is cheaper than this...

I used to collect currency notes and coins when I was a kid and the fascination still remains, though I simply photograph them now! Japanese currency notes are quite nice to look at and to touch and feel.

Curious about what the notes signify, I did a quick search on Wikipedia - the JPY 10,000 banknote features Fukuzawa Yukichia, a Japanese author, writer, educationist, translator, entrepreneur and journalist while the reverse features a statue of hoo, a mythological phoenix from the Byodō-in Temple, in Uji, Kyoto...

The JPY 5,000 note shows Japanese author Natsu Higuchi, who went by the pen-name Ichiyo Higuchi. The reverse shows Kakitsubata-zu, a painting of irises by Ogata Korin...

The JPY 1,000 banknote was the most exciting for me. It features Hideyo Noguchi, a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who in 1911 discovered a link between syphilis and progressive paralytic disease. The reverse shows Mount Fuji (which is on my bucketlist), Lake Motosu and cherry blossoms...

It is indeed heartening to see that Nippon Ginko (Bank of Japan) has avoided picturing military heroes or politicians or even monarchs on their banknotes. Perhaps the Reserve Bank of India should also take note and move beyond the depiction of Mahatma Gandhi on Rupee banknotes, which I guess will be a political decision!

こんにちは 日本 - Kon'nichiwa Nippon...

A delay in takeoff from Incheon and air traffic congestion ensured that we landed at Osaka Kansai nearly two hours late. But it wasn't too late to say  こんにちは 日本 - Kon'nichiwa Nippon...

Preparing immigration and customs documentation on the flight...

Our inflight meal - seafood rice with orange juice...

A shot of the airside at Kansai International Airport (KIX) at a high speed just after landing...

KIX is located on an artificial 13 square kilometre island located in the in the middle of Osaka Bay, 38 km southwest of Osaka Station, located within three municipalities, including Izumisano, Sennan and Tajiri in the industrial Kansai region of Osaka Prefecture...

The airport was completed in 1994 and was and still is an engineering marvel. Construction took nearly 7 years - it started in 1987 and the airport opened in 1994. A sea wall made of rock and 48,000 tetrapods was finished in 1989. Three mountains were excavated to yield 21,000,000 cubic metres of earth to make for the landfill that makes up the island today. In 1990, a three kilometer bridge was completed to connect the island to Rinku town.

The island was designed to be resilient to natural disasters. In January 1995, Japan was struck by the Kobe earthquake, whose epicenter was barely 20 kilometers away from KIX, but the airport emerged unscathed. In 1998, the airport survived a typhoon with wind speeds of 200 kilometres per hour.

The total cost of constructing KIX was about USD 20 billion including land reclamation, two runways, terminals and facilities. Additional costs were including expenses towards prevention of island sinking, expected due to the soft soil of Osaka Bay. 

Waiting for our bags at Terminal 2 of KIX...

Terminal 2 is a bare bones terminal exclusively for Peach. The terminal has no aerobridges and looks quite like an industrial shed unlike the main terminal, Terminal 1...

Waiting to board the airport limousine bus that would take us in 60 minutes to the Umeda area in Osaka city, which will be our home for the next 2 days. Everything in Japan seems to be in automated mode - even tickets are sold through vending machines!

The bus comes in...

And bags ready to go in...

And finally after an hour's ride along an elevated expressway, we reach Osaka city. We were dropped off at Herbis Osaka - shopping centre at 1 AM from where we took a taxi to our hotel. The taxi drivers here are suit clad and extremely courteous. When the driver realised and confirmed with us that we were Indian, his tone became extra sweet. Such is the soft power of our great nation...

Plane Spotting At ICN ... Part 7

After all these flights in and out of Incheon Airport, I have come to love this airport for one among many things and the most important of those is Plane Spotting!

Today, as we fly out to Osaka Kansai, I got another wonderful opportunity to do some more Plane Spotting...

A Korean Air Boeing 737...

A Korean Air Airbus A330...

And a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 in the background...

Jin Air Boeing 777 - Jin Air is an affiliate of Korean Air...

A few months back, Jin Air acquired Korean Air's old Boeing 777s for its high density routes - Guam, Sapporo, etc...

A China Southern Airbus A321 ready for pushback...

And it must be loaded with all that aloe vera gel that the mules are carrying - so it would be fair to call this flight the Aloe Vera Express...

Xiamen Airlines Boeing 737...

A few more China Southern Boeing 737s...

The whale from Dubai - Emirates Airbus A380...

A Jin Air Boeing 737...

A Jeju Air Boeing 737...

The bird from the Lion City...

Another Korean Air Airbus A330...

Here comes our flight - Peach Airbus A320...

Waiting to board...

A Xiamen Air Boeing 737 next to our flight!

A Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 taxis in the distance...

Pushback time...

Feeling Fruity, Feeling Peachy...

A long weekend is coming up and it is a God-send opportunity to head out of Songdo...

And this time, we are heading out to Japan, a short hop across the Sea of Japan. I hope I don't kick up a diplomatic storm here. The naming of the sea between Korea and Japan has been the cause of a long-standing diplomatic squabble between the two nations, and yes North Korea is also a party to the dispute.
The nomenclature dispute first came up in 1992 when the Koreans objected to the name, the "Sea of Japan". South Korea supports the name "East Sea", and North Korea supports the name "East Sea of Korea".
South Korea had argued that the name Sea of Japan did not become common until Korea was under Japanese rule, at which time it had no ability to influence international affairs. Japan argues that the name Sea of Japan has been the most common international name since the early 1800s, long before its annexation of Korea.
Both sides have conducted research on historical maps, and the research hasn't yielded anything conclusive so far. Frankly, I feel that this dispute is the outcome of the pathological aversion that the Koreans have for anything Japanese, presumably and justifiably stemming from the atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula during the early 1900s. But a dispute on the name of a sea? Is it a political move to cater to a domestic audience?
As they would say in India, bahut vehla time hai!   

Crossing the Incheon Bridge to head to the Incheon Airport...

The parking lots are full - it seems as though everyone is headed out of Incheon and Seoul for the long weekend...

The departures board tells me that Korean Air KE663 (codeshared with Jet Airways 9W4651) is leaving for home, Mumbai, later tonight, and that makes me so homesick... 

Checking in at the Peach checkin counters. Peach is a LCC established by ANA, the Japanese airline. The proliferation of LCCs in the region has made travel so much simpler...

Grabbing a snack before we board...

Oh darn, our flight to Osaka Kansai is delayed...

While Plane Spotting, I noticed something that was chaotic, weird, amusing, irritating and funny all rolled into one...

There was a mad rush of boisterous Chinese people - unpacking, segregating and repacking of stuff - mostly aloe vera skin gels - just outside the gates of all flights heading to Mainland China... 

A closer inspection revealed something weird - apparently these guys were all "mules". They all come to Korea in big groups - they lay their hands on Korean cosmetics (besides Hyundai, Samsung and LG, cosmetics from Korea are said to be real high quality) wherever they can - whether in Myeongdong in Seoul or at the Incheon duty free shops. Whatever is bought in Seoul is checked in. However whatever is bought at the duty free shops here at the airport is removed from the transparent plastic bags is repacked into suitcases, which then "checked in" at the boarding gate itself. These would find their way to street-side stalls in cities of the Mainland in a few days...

Finally we boarded, feeling all fruity and peachy! Japan, here we come!