Finally on the way to Osaka. This trip we decided to lighten the load by onsending a piece of luggage via Japan's amazing takyubin service. Let's hope it arrives at the hotel.
More to the point, our first meal, fittingly, are bento boxes on the train. And pretty good bentos they were too.
It's been a long time between drinks as they say, but we're finally off again, this time to the land of the rising sun. And having one's first experience with a budget airline.
One of the many things one used to take for granted with major carriers is to have one's luggage checked through to its final destination despite being forced to make unwanted stops. Unfortunately, in this case yours truly had to retrieve all our luggage at the final departure airport and go through the check in process twice in one day.
And having walked from one terminal to another and up a non working escalator, we faced utter chaos at the check in counter. Only 2 counters open with a mass of self service check in kiosks. Hey guys, this isn't like a supermarket. Scan passport, fail, ask roving attendant, get sent to one of the 2 counters staffed with obviously harried women. In fact, come to think if it, all the staff were women.
But that's not the end of the saga. We then had to brave the immigration/customs exit points.
Then the TRS claims. Yet another queue of iphone 6+ and camera buyers. Tick tick, boarding time edges closer as the queue slowly progresses. At least the TRS guys were quite friendly and efficient, more that can be said for the claimants. We make the gate with 5 minutes to spare, enough time to enjoy a barista bros iced coffee from a vending machine. Aaaaaah.
I suspect the experiment with this particular (not that cheap really) cheap airline may be short lived.
As it wasn't long before dinner we had to satisfy ourselves with a snack, at a place which sold, among other things, clam chowder. And pretty decent chowder it was too, served in a square bread bowl. We loved the eating instructions, which went something like (and I swear we didn't make this up) 'gracefully cut the bread into little pieces and soak them in the soup......'.
This particular model (GA-100B) is part of Casio's XL range (no prizes for guessing what XL means), originally released a couple or so years ago. It's got the usual basic Casio functions plus a nifty red onboard led night light rather than the usual EL backlight. The (still) strong trend towards oversized watches is great for us old guys with fading close in vision. The only negative for me is the weird colour choice of red for the hour hand, which makes it less visible. But hey, I bought it for the bright red strap so I could be more visible. If one can't have red hair one can certainly have a red watch!
A favourite (albeit pricey) Chinese New Year snack serving is bak kwa (barbecued pork jerky). In Singapore Bee Cheng Hiang is the main producer of these yummy delicacies although at S$30 a kilo I didn't see a lot of interest whenever we passed one of their outlets. Nonetheless I had to have some of this greasy goodness so I bought a few slices the other day. There are a few varieties to choose from but the spicy version is good! It tastes nothing like the dried beef jerky one can get from a supermaket, being moist and succulent. Also, being a 'heaty' food, it should not be consumed in large quantities in one go. Strangely, the rest of the clan did not share my passion, so my favourite 3 words applied here as well: 'more for me!'.
No not putting the brakes on culture, but us popping into the Singapore Art Museum. It's housed in the former Saint Joseph's Institution boys high school, which was relocated to the suburbs years ago along with all the other surrounding schools. I guess this probably had something to do with skyrocketing property prices together with increasing student intakes with no means of expansion, and the government's desire to have that area (being close to the CBD) serve a fine arts type role. Indeed, the area has other museums, galleries and we even spotted a ballet school.