Day #1 - Osaka Castle

»Day #1 - Osaka Castle

21 December 2012, Friday
The day was 21-12-12, the day the world would end in major cataclysms - solar storms, magnetic pole reversal, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. To the horror of some friends and family members, we chose today to travel to Japan instead of sitting at home tuning in to this grand finale.

Thankfully, rather than losing radio contact and flying into an erupting Mt Fuji, we touched down at Kansai Airport at 8.35am as scheduled.

「外国人の皆様、日本へよこそ」("To our foreigner passengers, welcome to Japan," announced the cabin attendant.

Nearly 2 years after my return from Japan in the wake of the 9.0 earthquake on 12 March 2011, I was back in the Land of the Rising Sun. This time with a companion though - my girlfriend Zhi, whom I promised I would bring here one day and "show her around the place". But that's an understatement as we have both been anticipating this moment since we booked our flight with Air Asia during a promotion back in March. (Perhaps I should also mention that the experience with Air Asia is a terrible one.)