Osaka

We left Beppu Saturday morning to crystal clear skies and very chilly temperatures. We caught the express train to Hakata where we transfered to the Shinkansen Railstar, which whisked us off to Osaka for our last night in Japan before flying home. Here's a shot of the space-age looking cabin we were sitting in. Hardwood floors, red leather seats, and plenty of overhead storage...

Our railpasses expired one day short of our departure, but they were the best part of this trip. They allowed us so much freedom and saved us tons of time by not having to wait in lines to buy tickets. All we had to do was flash our pass and we were let through. Here's what they look like - along with my very helpful Japan by Rail guidebook...

We got into Osaka at around 3 pm and found our hotel. We spent the last remaining hours of daylight cruising around the chic downtown area near Osaka Station. Osaka actually has two downtown areas. The one we checked out had a lot of sidewalk musicians entertaining the crowds. Once it was dark, we found our way to the famous Umeda Skywalk Building, which is one of the signature buildings in the city. We got spectacular views of the night lights from the "sky gardens" on the top of the building. Sorry, no photos of that, but here's one of the street bands we ran into...

The next day we checked out of our hotel at 11 am and found our way to the train station that took us to Kansai International Airport, which is built on an artificial island about an hour outside of Osaka. We missed our train by a couple seconds; it literally left as we were running after it! But no problem, another came by in half an hour, so we just hung out on the tracks. Here's Zach passing time listening to his ipod...

Kansai Airport (KIX) is a fabulous airport. It has tons of restaurants and stores where we spent our last few yen. It also has wifi areas, so we could access the internet on our laptop.

Our flight home was jammed packed, but we got a nice view of the sunrise over the Pacific.

All in all, 22 days in Japan...what an adventure. We're home now, but in 12 days - if all goes as planned - we'll be blogging from Mexico. Until then!