So my Dad and I took Scoot airlines and went to Kansai Airport, Osaka, Japan. We reached there in the late afternoon, around 4-5 pm.
The day will be quite short, so I will talk about additional stuff first.
Firstly, I want to share with you guys the things that are required to travel to Japan. (for December 2022) Luckily, from 11 October 2022, the pre-covid visa exemption arrangements are resumed. Therefore, my dad and I, both Singaporeans, were able to travel to Japan for 14 days without applying for visa. Tip: Check whether you need visa.
Other than bringing a passport, you need to prepare a valid vaccination certificate. I recommend preparing both hard and soft copies. For Singaporeans, you can download it from notarise.gov.sg.
Then, it would help if you also used Japan Web for faster entry. https://vjw-lp.digital.go.jp/en/. Prepare the necessary documents and get the QR codes to show to the immigration officers. This will help you to clear customs very fast.
This is optional and it depends on which parts of Japan you are travelling to. You can consider getting JR pass from a local travel agency, cause it is cheaper than getting it in Japan. There are different types of JR pass, if you want to know more about it, you can research about them on Youtube. We got the unlimited JR Pass which gives us access to travel to most parts of Japan. Tip: research on the places you are going to and how much having a JR Pass would save you. This way, you can find out whether it is worth for you to buy a JR Pass.
Next, once you reach Japan, buy an IC card. It is a rechargeable card, similar to an Ezlink card. You can use it to buy stuff at convenience stores, take trains, buses, etc. We bought 2 IC cards, which cost 2,000 yen each. 500 yen is the initial deposit and 1,500 yen is the amount of money in the card. You can return the IC card at the end of your trip to get the deposit and the remaining amount. But, you need to return the card to the same company's office. For example, if you bought from JR company, then you can only return it to JR company. In my case, I bought the IC cards from Osaka station, but I left Japan from Tokyo. The office in Tokyo belongs to a different company, so I kept the IC cards. There are different types of IC cards, but they are the same in terms of functions. If you want to know more, check this https://www.japanstation.com/japans-prepaid-transportation-cards-ic-cards/.
Once we landed in Japan, there were staff guiding us to the next stop. We had to go through customs. It went quite smoothly cause we already completed Japan Web. Once we passed through immigration. We looked for the JR pass office (we asked a local staff for directions HAHA). We needed to give them the "exchange order" which is like a receipt, in exchange for the actual JR pass. Once we got our JR passes, we took a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Osaka station. Shinkansen are very long, they have like 15 cabins and travel at the fastest speed in Japan compared to the other local trains.
Then we walked from the station to our hotel. HOTEL MYSTAYS Shin Osaka Conference Center 532-0011. By right, it should only take us 10 mins to get to the hotel, but even by looking at Google Maps, I got pretty confused. There were highways right outside the station and the station was so big. We ended up taking 15-20 mins to reach our hotel.
Once we checked in, we unpacked a bit and went out to look for dinner. At this point, it was 7-8 pm and I was very hungry. I checked Google maps and found out there were many small restaurants located nearby our hotel. We went to Nakau - Shin - Osaka to eat dinner. 3 Chome-23-9 Nishinakajima, Yodogawa Ward, Osaka, 532-0011, Japan. (took me a while to find the location, I may not be able to find some of the restaurants.)
I ate the beef set. I believe it is the charcoal grilled beef with egg and rice in it. *Here is the problem with the language barrier* We just order food based on the picture. If it looks nice, then we order. HAHA. The food is delicious. I would rate it 8/10. The price is considered cheap, but it was very filling.
After dinner, we walked around the neighbourhood for around 10-20 mins and I saw an arcade/casino. There were so many people playing.
Later, we went back to the hotel to rest.