Kansai....D1

I spent much time on the Google and finally drawn out a rough plan for our trip.

The departure was complicated. Ving and Yun and Xian had struggled to pack the luggage into cabin baggage standard so that we would have a smooth passage during the entry. Well, I thought it was unnecessary as we would be delayed during the immigration check. The packing had delayed our schedule; we leave our house 40min late than expected. We were still able to reach the airport in time and took a quick bite at the airport restaurant. I was worn off and fallen asleep before the flight took off as I had done night shift the night before the trip; it was a rough shift and I had slept less than 3 hours.

We touched down as scheduled and it took us 40mins to get pass the immigration. Yun and I had gone to buy train ticket to Kyoto while Xian and Ving had bought some Horai Bao and dumpling as snack. We reached the train platform 20mins prior to the departure and was lucky to board the train and gotten a seat for everyone. The train ticket was 1/3 of the local price and only available to foreigner, however it was on free seat basis, so on a pack day, passenger might need to stand all the way to Kyoto.

We arrived at Kyoto around 9pm and was unable to grab anything from the food court at the basement of the Kyoto station. We had gone for our backup plan by eating at a Ramen shop nearby the station. The food was nice and cheap. Ramen and fried chicken; simple foods that were good enough to keep a few hungry soul to move on.

It was a short walk of 1 km from the station. On the way, we grabbed some food and water from the nearby convenient shop; we had decided to have our breakfast in the apartment as we are not that keen of the Japanese type breakfast - soup and rice.

The apartment was great as commented by other travelers. I revised our plan before we gone to sleep as the train museum we would supposed to visit on D2 was closed. Everything was still under control but there was one factor that bothered me since 1 week before the journey – Typhoon Cimaron….

The typhoon was formed 1 week before our journey and I had been tracking its course since it was formed. One of the most worrying part was the day it would hit Kansai. The initially speed was slow and it would be a narrow escape for us if it continue with the same speed. I was haunted by the prediction but did not reveal it the rest of the family. On the day we arrived in Kansai, I was pretty sure that that Cimaron will miss Kansai airport on the day of our return, but we might be facing the typhoon during our visit to USJ; bad situation but better than finding for another return flight as PEACH airway is a low cost carrier and does not offer any service to find seat should the flight is cancelled. However the USJ ticket was non-refundable and I had spent a good load buying a fast pass-7 for everyone, all I could do was prayed....