From Nagoya to Osaka to Singapore

Our free flight to Singapore was thanks to all those Emirates airline miles we have collected over the years. Emirates have a partnership agreement with Japan Airlines and we were able to fly direct from Osaka.

Getting to Osaka involved the following (imagine a hot sticky day with a backpack each plus a suitcase): a taxi to the subway station, a walk down over 70 steps, a subway ride for 20 minutes (no air con), up rather a lot of steps to the exit, a walk through Nagoya's busy train station, up more steps, onto the shinkansen (bullet train), a 50 minute journey to Shin Osaka station, down a lot more steps to the bus stop, a brief hang-about in the sun at the airport bus queue until we realised that the bus went to Osaka's OTHER airport, back up the stairs, faff around with ticket machines trying to decipher the buttons and buy train tickets on the Kansai Airport express, run down the stairs in order to catch the next airport express, a bit of confusion at the platform as we try to figure out where "car 4" would stop, a 50 minute train journey to the airport, a bit of faffing around trying to get out money as we had forgotten which buttons were which on the ATM (I can never remember the kanji).

Finally, hours later we check in. Travelling in Japan really isn't easy.

The flight was only just over 6 hours and was pretty uneventful until we were about to disembark in Singapore. I looked at David who had blood pouring down his face. He had nicked himself shaving that morning. For sich a tiny nick, there was an awful lot of blood. I rummaged around in my bag for a tissue, but the only thing I could find that might stop the bleeding was a panty liner. David gave me the look that told me he would rather keep bleeding than turn up at the Oriental Hotel with that stuck to his face and I kept digging. To our relief I found an almost clean tissue, a wet wipe and a plaster!

From touchdown to being in our hotel room took less than an hour - even faster than Dubai. The hotel is gorgeous and lives up to the hype. The lobby has just the right balance of orchids, candles, black marble and water. Our bed room was (predictably) bigger than our entire apartment in Nagoya and infinitely posher. We put the AC down to a frosty 18 degrees - something we are never able to do in Japan - so that we could loll around in the enormous bath robes.

The JAL flight had shown a video about Singapore shortly before landing to get us all in the mood. The strange thing was, you'd think from the video that there are only Japanese restaurants in Singapore. You'd see a smug Japanese couple eating tempura, a group of Westerners sitting at a conveyer belt sushi restaurant and a (Japanese) chef with a big scary knife preparing sashimi. What about the great Singaporean signature dishes? The Dumplings? Dim Sum? Thalis? Spicy laksas? Flat rice noodles? Chicken rice? According to JAL we passengers didn't need to know about all that stuff. It would be like BA flight showing only where to get fish and chips. We made a decision not to eat any Japanese food during our entire holiday.

For our first night we visited the hawker stands across the road next to the Esplanade and ate a grand spicy meal for about 4 dollars each. I also treated myself to coconut water straight out of the coconut. I have had them so many times in Abu Dhabi, Bangkok and Rio but I still get a kick out of it. Great start to our quick visit to Singapore.

Here's a picture of the famous landmark - the Merlion. He's spitting water over our hotel in this picture.