Asia 2024

🗺️ - Day 38 - Cebu to Kyoto

The journey to Japan started at 6am with a Grab (the SE-Asian Uber) to the airport. Since I left the hostel early, I didn't take time to eat before getting to the airport. I just had something once I passed security.

My flight to Manila took off on time at 8.45.

I initially thought I'd have to change terminal in Manila again, but wasn't necessary.

As usual in Asia, everything is made for shorter people than me, so the height of the toilet doors was slightly low when I stand up!

My second flight taking me to Osaka was on time too.

The immigration process before entering Japan is surprisingly long, with multiple steps to go through.

First of all, I had to go through a machine assisted identity process, where they screen your passport, and take your fingerprints and picture.

For the next step, I had to fill in a Disembarkation Card for foreigner before going through passport control. Only then did I get a sticker in my passport. For some reason Japan doesn't do stamps, probably to simplify immigration officers' job.

Even though I already had a sticker, I still had to fill in a form and pass through Customs Declaration. The woman checking my form had me empty my entire main bag—I'm not sure why, she wasn't looking for anything in particular. Good thing I could extend my bag a bit, so just stuffing everything back in quickly did the trick.

That was the last step, so I was free to find the train station after that.

Overall I found the Japanese immigration process slightly disorganised and not too well indicated, which is a bit off-brand for Japan.

The Osaka Kansai airport is actually on an artificial island, so the station is immediately outside the airport and very easy to find.

My Japanese friend Kouta told me I could simply get a ticket at the machine once I got to the station, except the machine didn't take cards and I hadn't had a chance to withdraw cash yet so I was stuck..

However, I saw on a sign it was possible to get an ICOCA travel card directly on my phone with Apple Wallet. It was a very simple process, with virtually no sign up, only selecting the type of card and topping it up.

That ended up being a great solution. I could simply top up the virtual card when I needed and just tap my phone to pay for any public transport, whether it be train, metro or bus, and avoid queueing at the ticket machines.

Once I boarded the train to Kyoto, I saw a notice on the seats saying that I needed an express ticket on top of the regular travel fare! The train was just about to leave in a couple of minutes, so in panic I jumped back out of the train, and quickly found a ticket inspector on the platform.

Most people in Japan don't speak good english, if at all, and that ticket inspector was no exception to the rule. I think he just recognised the words "express ticket" I said, and just showed me a paper he was holding saying it could be purchased onboard in multiple languages.

So I quickly jumped back onto the train before it departed, and got the express ticket from the ticket inspector when he came by.

As expected from Japanese Rail, the train arrived perfectly on time at Kyoto station. Kouta met me there and took me back to his place. His mum met us at Yamashina station, the main train/metro station of the district he lives in.