While Kyoto seemed like a small laid back city with 1.4 million people, Osaka was on the same level as Tokyo in terms of speed and energy. When we exited the Namba station and walked out into the streets, we were back in the thick of it. Cars and people were everywhere. Lights and billboards filled every space that your eye could view. Our airbnb apartment was supposedly a straight shot down the road. We followed the google maps directions, but Elizabeth was growing impatient. She insisted that we take a taxi the rest of the way.
We flagged down a Toyota Crown taxi, then went through the effort of pulling out the baby, breaking down the stroller, putting our luggage, and stroller into the trunk, then trying to communicate the address we were trying to reach, to this well dressed gentleman in his mid-late 60’s. He put in what he thought was the address into his GPS, and then we headed off. While I was stuffed in the back seat, I still had my map running, and the more that he drove, the further away we seemed to be going from the red dot on my screen. After a few minutes, it looked like we were in a completely different part of the city. I showed him my phone, to tell him that I thought that we were going the wrong way. I found a hotel nearby where we were staying and then he put that hotel name into his GPS.
We looped back around and 2000 Yen later and we were there. When we finally got out we unloaded our stuff and looked across the street, only to find that the same buildings that we were looking at when we thought we were lost, were only a block or two away from where we were staying that night. So instead of the taxi driver, driving us down one or two streets, or even just pointing to the direction that we were supposed to go, he went through the hassle of having us load everything in and out and then driving us around for 20 minutes. This was probably the most ripped off that I felt on our whole trip. This was after, I drew the caricature for trade and the artist refused to hold up his end of the deal. In the end he made us pay for the ride, even though it only ended up being a block from where we got in.
The place that we were staying at was a huge high rise that was surrounded on all sides by legitimate hotels, which probably cost twice as much to stay in. We walked into the lobby, which had all glass doors and a gold looking trim, which gave you the impression that you were staying someplace upscale. We were instructed to put in a combination at the keypad next to the door, and then another one on the combination lock on the mailbox, where the key was located. We typed another combination into the keypad to get through the next glass security door, then walked into the elevator, which took us up to the appropriate floor. The elevator opened 10 floors up to an outdoor walkway. We walked down a few doors before finding our apartment.
We keyed in, then opened the door to another small, bare bones Japanese apartment. The room was clean, but sparse of many of the comforts that we were expecting. The bed was a box spring on the floor, but at least there was a tv. The shower, toilet, and kitchen sink were right next to the door. The room had a small stove, but since we didn’t have anything to cook, we probably wouldn’t be using it. Once again, there was a small washing machine hidden in the hallway, but since we had washed our clothes at the hotel in Kyoto, we wouldn’t need to wash any of our clothes. Elizabeth felt a draft near the window above the bed, so she grabbed the remote controller for the heater. She pushed all the buttons, but she wasn’t able to get it turned on. This would be a point of contention for the rest of the evening, but it really meant that we were going to have to make use of all of the blankets that were provided and there, weren’t many.