Last Day on Two Wheels

Sunday 11th April

We had a sleep in this morning which was certainly needed as our scooter adventure draws to a close. We finally dawdled out of the hotel at about 11.00am and started the 35 km ride back to Osaka. Negotiating the spaghetti junctions onto the required road was a bit hair raising, but the Japanese people are very considerate drivers, so we managed to get there without too much drama. The Japanese people are actually very considerate, fullstop! We have found them to be very polite, friendly and willing to help and that has made the trip so enjoyable. I could so easily live here, but would probably miss our secluded quiet little valley before too long. The car traffic is really quite OK, because most of the people travel by the excellent train and subway system or by bicycle or scooter.

There is no actual break between Kobe and Osaka. John described it as "like riding down Grenfell Street for 35 kilometres" [non-Adelaideans, substitute the name of a busy shopping/business street in your capital city]. We passed through more traffic lights than we could have imagined. We were actually quite happy with that, as it meant that we could easily keep together and we had breathing space to confirm where we were up to as we went along.

Although it was something of a 'no-news' day today, we did see a couple of sights along the way that are probably worth a mention. The first was a group of people crossing at a pedestrian crossing. One was a monk dressed in a black robe with white trousers, split-toe socks and Japanese sandals, closely followed by a young woman in a glittering silver mini skirt, with lacey black stockings, stiletto boots and a black Michael Jackson hat. The contrast would have made a good photo, but staying safe on the scooters was our first priority. We also saw a woman on a bicycle with one child in a seat on the handlebars and another child on the seat on the back. This arrangement still left room for shopping in the basket at the front. Very efficient and planet-friendly! The third sight was a Western woman standing outside Lawson's convenience store eating an egg salad with chopsticks. Oh yeah, that was me!

After a few wrong turns, we finally found our way back to the Hotel Raizan, where we stayed when we first arrived in Osaka. When we booked the room on the Internet last night, there were only single rooms available, but thanks to a 'no-show' we were able to have a double room after all.

The guy at the front desk recognised us from a couple of weeks ago and when we told him that we had just completed an 850km trip on scooters he said "My Jesus Christ!!" He took our photo to put on his wall of fame, so if you're ever passing through Osaka, drop into the Hotel Raizan South to have a look.

After checking in we went by subway to Umeda to revisit the Yodobashi Camera Store. I'm intrigued by the fact that the people on the trains can be apparently fast asleep, but as soon as they reach their station, they suddenly return to the land of the living and get off as if they'd been awake all the time. At the store, we bought a memory stick to back up our photos and I bought 2 watches for 500 yen each (about $6.00). One of them has Japanese numbers on it, so it will be a good souvenir of our trip. We were intrigued by a large group of people huddled in a corridor outside the Yodobashi store. It seems that it's a wireless Internet hot spot, so people line up along the wall with their portable devices to do some 'net surfing. These little chaps were totally engrossed in whatever they were looking at!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the nice little noodle shop that we went to on our earlier visit and followed up a lovely meal with a decadent caramel ice cream!

John cleaned up the scooters in readiness for their return tomorrow, so we're now ready for the next stage of the journey.