Sydney-Gold Coast-Tokyo, and Osaka

I’m returning home after a year of living in Australia.
However, instead of going directly to Korea, I decided to go through Japan.
And on the way through Japan,
I planned to travel to Osaka and the Kansai region.

I had already booked my ticket for December in August.
I used the low-cost airline Jetstar.
Currently, Jetstar has direct flights from Sydney to Incheon,
but in 2009, there were no direct flights to Korea, only direct flights to Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.

Thanks to that, I thought it was a good opportunity to travel in Japan.

I booked the flight for about 300,000 won(USD 240), but there’s a reason it’s cheap.
It was obvious that I had to book meals separately,
and it was natural for the flight to have transfers and layovers.

My flight schedule was from Sydney to Gold Coast,
from Gold Coast to Tokyo (Narita),
and from Tokyo, without getting off, I would move again to Osaka.

Sydney – Gold Coast – Tokyo (Narita) – Osaka (Kansai)

I took a flight at 8:30 in the morning and arrived in Osaka at 9:35 in the evening.
Including the transfer and a 2-hour time difference (summer time), it was a 15-hour journey.
Considering that the Seoul-Sydney direct flight is 12 hours, it wasn’t such a bad trip.

This Journey started from Museum Station, Sydney
I left home at 5 in the morning and headed to the airport.
Since it was a weekday morning, there weren’t many people.

Leaving Australia, especially Sydney, was regrettable,
but since I had made the decision to go, I felt content and happy to go home.

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time and checked in.
Then I received three tickets.
I could also pick up my luggage in Osaka,
so apart from transferring flights, there wasn’t much inconvenience.

While heading to the departure gate after checking in, I came across Korean Air booths.
If I had taken Korean Air, I could have gone straight to Incheon,
which is a pity.
I thought, “I’m not going to Japan to save money,
I’m going to Japan to travel.”
And that’s the truth.

I didn’t go out the door,
but turned around and went to catch the plane.

“I’ll come again, Sydney.”

I entered the departure gate leisurely and waited for the plane at the gate.
The plane I was going to take was already parked at the terminal.
The flight to the first destination, Gold Coast, was a short flight of about an hour.
So, the plane wasn’t big.

I brought a few variety shows on my electronic dictionary, Dictple, for studying English.
I used to enjoy watching “Kang Shim Jang” (a variety show),
and seeing it now,
it was a time when smartphones were just starting to become popular but were not yet mainstream.

The capacity and content weren’t enough to fill the entire 15-hour journey.
But still, I was happy to be able to go home with a smile.

Gold Coast Airport was incredibly small.
Compared to famous tourist destinations, it was a really small airport.
There was one small duty-free shop, and that was it.

At 10:50, there was the JQ11 flight listed for both Tokyo and Osaka. Gate 9.
It was a place where low-cost airlines like Jetstar and AirAsia operated, rather than large aircraft.
At that time, AirAsia wasn’t popular in Korea, but it was already well-known in Southeast Asia and Oceania.

I had cola and a sandwich for breakfast.
I sat in front of the gate for two hours, looking outside and waiting for the plane.
And I satisfied my hunger with the cola and sandwich.

While waiting for the plane, my mother called me internationally and we talked on the phone.
She was very happy that I was going back home,
and she worried about my journey back home, telling me to be careful.

There was no KakaoTalk or video call,
it was an analog international call, my journey back home.

The airport was small, so I walked from the gate to the plane.
I thought the plane from Sydney was small for a domestic flight,
but even the flight from Gold Coast to Tokyo was a small plane either.
It was the kind of plane that made me wonder if it could cross the Pacific Ocean and reach Tokyo.

Most of the passengers on the plane to Japan were Japanese.
Although my body was in Gold Coast, most of the people around me were Japanese.
It felt like I had already arrived in Japan in my mind.
Japan is right next to Korea, and I felt one step closer to home.

This small plane flew smoothly to Tokyo without any issues,
but perhaps because it was small or because the wind was unusually strong,
there were moments when the plane experienced sudden drops, and my heart would skip a beat,
and some passengers would scream at those moments.

There was a Japanese woman sitting next to me,
and I remember exchanging just one sentence during the more than ten-hour flight:

“Can I borrow your pen?”

When we were almost in Japan, I took out my Korean passport and filled out the Japanese arrival card.
Only then did she realize that I wasn’t Japanese but Korean.
She needed to fill out a tax declaration form,
and in her unique Japanese-style English, she asked me to borrow a pen.

I had pre-ordered an in-flight meal, of course, at an additional cost.
I had the meal before landing in Tokyo.
It was a Korean-style braised short rib dish, and it was delicious and satisfying.

When I arrived at Tokyo’s Narita Airport,
it was already dark as the December sun had set quickly.
It was raining, and the Japanese passenger next to me quickly said a simple farewell and disembarked from the plane.

I stayed on the plane,
and without any additional passengers boarding, the plane took off again towards Osaka.

I arrived in Osaka at 9:30 PM.
It was also raining in Osaka.
I was tired from the long flight, but I felt relieved that I had safely arrived in the Asian continent and in neighboring Japan.

And although it was my first time in Japan, as soon as I saw the familiar Korean language,
the tension disappeared.
I easily made my way out of the departure hall and headed to Namba Station where my accommodation was.

Since Kansai Airport is connected to the subway, I had no trouble reaching Namba Station,
but after spending about an hour at the immigration checkpoint and another hour on the subway, when I finally arrived at Namba Station,
it was close to midnight.

In the days before smartphones, the way to find accommodations was
to take a picture of the map I had found on a PC in Sydney and use it on my phone while moving around.

My accommodation in Osaka, Osaka House,
even though I got off at Namba Station on a late evening, it was difficult to distinguish the surroundings.
I always had confidence in finding my way even on unfamiliar paths,
but at midnight at Namba Station, I got lost.

I wandered through a sparsely populated residential area in Japan, dragging my heavy backpack and suitcase.
But then, coincidentally, I saw a Japanese couple, so I instinctively asked them for directions in English.
Having spent a year in Australia, I unconsciously thought that English was necessary when abroad.

Communication naturally didn’t work in English,
but I showed them the map and tried to express that I was looking for accommodation, and fortunately, it seemed like they understood my intention.
I only wanted them to show me the direction, but realizing that I didn’t know any Japanese,
they walked with me in the opposite direction of where they were going, guiding me to find the way.

It didn’t take long for me to find my accommodation,
and I expressed my gratitude and apologies.
I remember them smiling as if it was nothing, cheering me on for my journey.

The Japanese couple who helped me find my accommodation,
my first encounter with Japan was kind and warm.
With a heart full of gratitude, I wanted to take a photo, so I hastily took one,
but it was dark, and the photo turned out blurry.
However, even looking at this unclear photo without clear faces, I can still recall their faces and expressions from that moment.
They seemed to be coworkers rather than a couple, and it seemed like we happened to meet on the way back home after finishing a late lunch.

After checking in at the accommodation past 1 AM, I unpacked my luggage.
I reflected on the route that brought me from leaving Sydney early in the morning to arriving in Osaka just before dawn.
And once again, I expressed my gratitude to the people I had met in Japan for the first time.

I felt that there would only be good things ahead as I traveled through Osaka.

Having lived in the opposite side of the world in summer and returning to winter in just half a day,
it felt like being next to my home provided a sense of stability.

Dec. 11. 2009