As the Korean Air flies, Seoul is a mere 90 minutes from Osaka, but that transfer took the better part of a full day.  As noted previously, Incheon airport is about an hour and a half from Seoul by car. So, there’s that.The usual airport shenanigans, however, take significantly less time than any other airport, so points for ICN on that one. Smooth arrival in Customs, grabbed our bags, then hopped the high-speed train to Tennoji station in Osaka. Finally a cab to our hotel. *whew*

We’re doing the wifi rental thing again here in Osaka through Global Communications. Again, secure wifi for our iPhones for about US$5/day. The unit was delivered to our hotel with a pre-paid return envelope; we can drop it in the post here at the hotel or at the airport.

We picked up ICOCA cards (local transit pass, similar to ORCA) to avoid having to deal with single journey tickets.

First up in Osaka, after checking into our hotel, was dinner. I was set on Garage 39, a small bar featuring craft beers and small plates.  It was every bit as good as I remembered it from my previous trip.

Random side-note about currency. We order cash from our bank here in the US whenever we can. For Japan, we typically receive a whack of these Y2000 notes which doesn’t seem that odd (roughly a US$20)  … until you hand one over in Japan. Everyone does a double-take – not like it’s fake, but like it’s seriously unusual. It happened my previous trip and again several times this trip. I guess they ship them all overseas … ?