Osaka, 2018/10/27 part 2

I feel like I need to find a new word for "excitement". When they came out of the gates, I just could not stop myself from smiling really wide. I rarely have a chance to be with my brother and his family. In general, we did not spend a lot of time anyway. When I was just entering junior high school, both of my brothers began studying abroad in the United States. Our 10 years of age difference made me realize that I needed some time to catch up to their level of communication style and/or maturity. But to be honest, I always enjoy spending time with Bang Andre, Astrid *his wife* and Alka *the daughter*.

After the exuberant greetings and hugs, came the “how was the trip conversation”. I was quite heartbroken to hear that Alka had difficulty in the airplane due to the air pressure changes. I remember myself having that problem when I was younger. The air pressure change felt so strange, and when I was young, I had no idea what to do when that happened. The change in hearing itself was scary enough, the pain that followed must be quite a shock for the little girl. I had to admire my brother and his wife for their fortitude in facing those times. I suppose I need to learn also that children are stronger than they look. Because evidently when I got to hug Alka, she was as energetic as usual and was very cheery indeed!

First thing to do was to decide which luggage to send over to our destination using Japan delivery services. That was another service that seems so usual now but people tend to overlook in their hectic travel schedule. Some places, such as airports, convenience stores, and hotels, usually offer a luggage delivery service. Depending on the distance and size, most of the luggage arrive the same day, or at the most in 2 days to the destination. Traveling in Japan is so enjoyable using their public transport, but sometimes carrying luggage around is such a hassle. Especially if that luggage grows as your trip progresses with all the gifts and souvenirs you buy along the way. With this in mind, it is advisable to deliver your luggage to your next hotel or other accommodations. This will allow you to walk around carrying just the essentials with you and allow for more mobility during your travel. Sure most stations and buildings in Japan are equipped with an elevator for accessibility, but trust me, sometimes finding them can be a treasure hunt on its own and time is precious! Also, it will prevent most of your muscles aching from carrying too much stuff.

Next thing to do was to activate their JR (Japan Rail) Pass. This was basically an all-you-can ride JR pass. They purchased in back in Indonesia through travel agents. Japan had this great rail system that allowed for quite enjoyable domestic travels. If you are going to Japan and plan to change cities during your travel, it is a really good idea to buy these passes. The price ranges around USD 350 (around IDR 4 million) which usually is about the price that cover a return trip of Osaka-Tokyo with the Shinkansen. The catch of these passes is that you would not be able to use the Nozomi trains, which is the fastest set of trains that is available. In addition to Shinkansen, the JR pass also works for any JR line in the local train region.

Here is the breakdown. In Japan, there are local train lines and the JR Line. The way to see it is that, each town has their own train line. Meanwhile the nation is connected by the government-controlled train line, called the JR. This makes is a tad bit complicated because different train lines may require different ticket purchases. Luckily, in the last 5 years, there was the amazing progress that allows IC card users to use it across different train lines. The JR pass itself has several tiers to choose from. Depending on the duration of its use (around 1 to 2 weeks) and whether you want a special level of train car (something akin to the business class).

They also have this concept of reserved seats or non-reserved seats. Basically, most Shinkansen have several cars dedicated for free-for-all seating. You go to the station, queue as soon as possible in front of the designated train car and when it is time to board, you go in and grab a seat in competition with other passengers. That same train will also have several cars dedicated for reserved seats, meaning passengers with seat numbers assigned to them before boarding. As a general rule, it is better to buy a reserved seat ticket. However, if you are not sure whether you can make a certain train schedule and does not mind sitting slightly apart from your group, you should just get non-reserved tickets. ALSO, if you get non-reserved tickets, you can just upgrade it through the station office to reserved tickets if necessary.

Bang Andre and I queued in the directed line and waited for our turn. It was crowded and the line was intimidatingly long. Fortunately, there were a lot of available counters so the line moved along swiftly. Upon reaching the counter we asked the officer to activate their JR pass and consequently book a seat number for the Shinkansen trip to Tokyo. Although I did not have a JR pass, I bought the tickets from the seller in campus, and their network was so seamless that the officer could book a seat for me too near my family. I found it interesting that during the ordeal, we went to a counter marked “English Available”. It began innocently enough with my brother requesting the activation service and reservations using English and the officer replied in quite refined English. After which I uttered “Arigatou gozaimasu” (thank you very much) by reflex. Apparently, this triggered something in the officer’s brain that effectively turned off their English brains and triggered Japanese language all the way. I find this to be the case for almost all service interaction. Upon beginning with English, they will reply in English. However, as soon as they detect the smallest indication of Japanese Language understanding, they assume that we are all proficient in it. It was an interesting behavior that I found to appear quite consistently.

As soon as we activate the JR passes, we head to the station to catch the train that go to the Shinkansen station. Only several stations are designated Shinkansen station, the one in Osaka was named Shin-Osaka. Conveniently, there was a train that went there directly from the airport and was available almost every 15 minutes. We chatted during the wait while I observe how little Alka is absorbing all this new environment. I wonder whether she realized that the place looks a little bit different than home. That the people around her looked a little bit different than back home. Even the temperature must feel kind of different since it was in the middle of fall and the chill was definitely creeping in. Luckily, she seemed OK. She looked around and pointed at a few things excitedly. Her basic communication skills were so interesting to see. She pointed at the trains and mimic the sounds of a moving train. Repeatedly at different trains that existed on the different platforms. She waved and voiced “bye-bye” directed to departing trains on other platforms. When our train finally arrived and we started moving towards it, she pointed to the train and began rocking excitedly in her mother’s embrace.

I so admire children’s excitement. They are so joyful, because to them, most of these things were literally new. Each sight and touch and smell were new, and they had such primeval brain to process all the input. When I was young, I tend to react with such enthusiasm to a lot of things new or less new. But there was a time in my life that such actions were looked down upon by my so-called peers and I was pressured to act less…enthusiastic. Luckily as I grew older, I resurrected that level of enthusiasm to a level that enabled a natural way to slowly filter my surrounding to consist of people that could tolerate, and in some weird cases, even appreciate it. There are so many things in this world that seem so normal because we are exposed to it every day, but actually its existence is built upon centuries of history bringing along a high value of intrigue within.

Shin-Osaka station is a special kind of “beast” in my mind. It looks big from the outside, but feels even bigger on the inside. Multiple floors of activity, rows of lockers on the corner of your glances, people buzzing around either looking down on their gadget screens or up to the hanging information monitors. It might seem intimidating at first, but really all it takes is just focus to go to the train platform that you need to. There are several things to note when you are looking for a Shinkansen train. (1) train destination. This might be tricky because some monitors only show Japanese characters and sometimes it only shows the train’s last stop. The alternative is (2) train name and number. On the Shinkansen train ticket that you obtained, there listed the name of the train and a number. That can usually be matched to the information displayed on the monitors. Which then will lead you to (3) Time. The train number is linked to the time. Some trains might have same name but different numbers because they will arrive/depart at different times. More importantly, the information monitor will also show (4) platform number.

Then comes the next problem… Shin-Osaka station is full of boards showing numbers. Numbers for platforms, numbers of the trains, numbers for the food price, and many other information presented in several languages. It was truly a nightmare for easily distracted people, like myself. Luckily I was not alone and distributed the important information to my family so they helped me notice the platform number and quickly made their way towards it. Meanwhile, my mother walked easily towards the food stalls and bought us food. It was kind of a tradition to buy the Bento boxes from the Shinkansen station and eat it in the train. I agree to the tradition, especially since our trip would take about 4 hours, and that should provide us quite a leisure amount of time to have our lunch. For those not currently confident with their Japanese Language to read and say the food options, do not fret. In Japan, food is displayed beautifully using their food models and beside those usually exist a large number that can be used to indicate the menu easily to the counter or cashier. After that, it was an easy trip up to the platforms and locating the right car number.

The rest of this journey was filled with my mom and I trying our best to keep Alka busy in the train. Distracting her with drawings, and writings, and selfies (…today’s generation. What have I done, forgive me Alka). Bang Andre and Astrid stole some naps here and there. I felt that they should. Traveling in this way is a challenge on its own, I could not imagine how tasking it must have been for them with a kid on their heels. I showed Alka some interesting sights from the train and she responded enthusiastically to them. I was particularly proud of a snap I obtained of the Fuji Mountain. Shinkansen is truly a technological marvel as it zoomed through urban and suburban area. There was barely a disturbing sound and the vibrations from the train were hardly noticeable, even borderline anesthetic. I was glad to find Bang Andre, Astrid and Alka aptly stole some 2 hours or so of nap in the train.

During the train ride, I was worried that Alka would be noisy and be a nuisance in the train. Not to me, but to the general public. It was something of an expectation that people just remain silent in the trains in Japan, and I was sure that a kid will make many unintelligible sounds. Luckily that was not the case. Sure sometimes she shriek something awesome, but to their credit, nobody actually threw evil looks or complained. Perhaps the other passengers were really proficient at hiding their distaste. Perhaps they were nice understanding people. Whichever it was, it did not bother us, so I decided to just enjoy the ride.

Several times I refreshed my Google Maps to show the travel options we can use to head towards our hotel in the Disneyland complex. As usual, there were a wide array of train options, bus alternatives and the most expensive one, taxi call spots. As we arrived on Tokyo station, I took several minutes before we arrived to warn my family that we need to drop out of the train as swiftly as possible. I was not sure whether Tokyo was the last station of our train, but if it wasn’t sometimes the train continued their journey really quickly and missing the stop was a real possibility.

Tokyo station was…another kind of “beast”. Shin-Osaka but with even more people and even more information billboards. But this time everyone was a little bit more aware, definitely the lunch energized them a bit. Or perhaps the closer we get to Disneyland, the more excited they become. It was not difficult to find the local train service that would allow us to go to the Disneyland complex. Alka was so adorable during the trip as she tried to interact with a lot of people and things along the way. She waved and pointed and sounded her excited bye-byes. The portable stroller we bought earlier in the month was definitely helpful to give Astrid’s and Bang Andre’s shoulders a rest.

The Disney World complex felt like a whole other world in the middle of Japan. I think they purposely made it so. The walls were plastered with Disney characters, the local trains were designed with Mickey Mouse shaped windows, and everything were just so much more colorful. Even the people there were wearing costumes of Disney Characters and I am pretty sure at least 50% of them were self-made costumes. Just below the Disneyland complex station was a bus terminal. From there, we could take Buses to any hotel on the island (Disney World kind of exist on their own custom island), so it was just a matter of finding our Hotel name on the bus stop board. At this point, I felt significantly calmer and happier already. I knew that transport would not be that much of a problem anymore. Also I am sure that being in the last “stretch” of the journey usually gives people an extra bar of energy. As the Mickey-patterned bus that detailed our hotel name came, I already began thinking of how to find dinner.

The hotel check in was crowded, but it was moving along swiftly. Luckily we arrived around 5pm, and it was much of a rush hour yet. The hotel was definitely interesting. It was not one of those epic Disney-themed hotels where Disney characters moved around the place, but they still had very cheery interior themes. Our hotel rooms were conveniently placed next to each other and had some kind of Wild West interior design with wood-brownish atmosphere and some antique décor. Luckily I noticed that there was a kind of shopping place near the station we came from earlier. So that was where we got our dinner. I finally got to show Bang Andre and Astrid that Ippudo in Jakarta taste different than the one in Japan.

As the night closes, I checked on the best way to get to the Disney World. The tickets we chose were 2-day tickets, but we opted to go Disney World on the first day then Disney Sea on the second day. Apparently it was a simple direct bus ride from the hotel and an easy barcode read on the park entrance. To be honest, I was not feeling that tired at that time. I was satisfied at our travel speed, the luggage management was good, we did not get lost at all, and I think everyone was tired up to a very reasonable level. It was definitely an achievement for my brother. He literally just traveled with his family from Indonesia that included, (1) 1 hour drive from his home to Jakarta Airport, (2) 6 hours flight Jakarta-Osaka, (3) 1 hour train ride from Kansai International Airport to Shin-Osaka station, (4) 4 hours Shinkansen ride from Shin-Osaka to Tokyo Station, (5) 1.5 hours of train and bus ride from Tokyo station to the Hotel. Congratulations!