kansai international airport

i totally forgot that i haven't talked about the airport! okay.. i've never been to kansai international airport before this trip. usually people would go to japan from tokyo (arrived at haneda or narita) then proceed until osaka and leave from osaka (kansai international airport). but twice we've been there, we always came from tokyo and got back from tokyo too. so this is a totally new thing for me.

when we arrived, it was about 9 am and we were tired since we couldn't get enough sleep on the plane. and we wanted to go to kobe afterward, so after we finished the immigration, we went to HIS travel counter on the same floor (the international arrival floor) to get our SIM card and then bought the bus ticket. there was a JR counter as well, but since the line was quite long, we decided to just get our pass at sannomiya station in kobe. i didn't see any restaurant on this floor, but there was a lawson, so you could get some drink and snack. there were starbucks and doutour coffee shop on this floor as well. for complete floor map, you can see it here. the bus stops were outside of this floor, so when we arrived we didn't have to wander around to other floor, and got our business done on the same floor.

when we were about to go back home, we went to the airport using airport shuttle service from our hotel. and it was way too early for us since our flight boarded at night and it was still about 3 pm when we arrived. so we walked around trying to find things to do. we were dropped off at international departure floor, which was the 4th floor and it had nothing else beside flight counters. there were starbucks and azeria near the departure gate though.. but we didn't see it. the whole map for the departure floor can be seen here.

since the counters haven't opened yet, we decided to go to the 3rd floor which seemed to have all the restaurants. be careful when you use the escalator though, because some of them were skipping floor, so the first time, we got the wrong escalator and we got straight to 2nd floor instead of the 3rd. but it was a good thing, because on that floor, we saw some coin lockers under the other escalator, but it was an all day coin lockers. just like other coin lockers, it came in 3 sizes, small, medium and large. near that lockers area, you could see McDonalds, and just beside it was a lounge area. you could rest in the lounge and even take a shower. you could only take a shower, unfortunately at that time, the showers were full and you had to queue inside the lounge area. husband didn't want to pay for the lounge, so we decided not to take the shower. the staff couldn't speak english well, but he told me that there was another shower room, however, it was in another wing, so we didn't check it out. the whole 2nd floor map can be seen here.

there were two food courts alike in the 2nd floor, machiyakoji and gourmet avenue renga toro. the gourmet avenue had u-don (self service udon), goryo (toast, mackarel, western style breakfast, ramen and it had child menu as well), nigirino tokube (sushi), hanagoyomi (soba and udon but it had pork bowl as well), mosdo (burgers and donuts), and world wine bar. we didn't eat there, but we ate at machiyakoji. machiyakoji had ryukishin (ramen), teppan curry indo no roux (curry rice or udon), subway, honmamon (sushi), takomasa (takoyaki, akashiyaki and yakisoba), maido okini kanku-shokudo (japanese style dishes), botejyu-yatai (yakisoba and modernyaki), horai 551, sukiya (rice bowl, open 24 hours), torisanwa (oyakodon and other chicken set menu).

husband still craved from some yakisoba, so he ordered from botejyu. but at the counter, he changed his mind, seeing lots of people queueing at botejyu walked away with modern-yaki. so he ordered the modern-yaki. basically it was similar to the one we ate at mizuno. it had yakisoba as the base of the okonomiyaki, and there was a little batter and egg on top and then covered with bonito flakes, okonomiyaki sauce and seaweed powder. they gave mayonnaise too. i tried a bit and it was delicious. similar in taste as kyo-chabana one, but since the batter was quite thin, it was just like yakisoba with egg on top. one portion would be satisfying for one person.

modern-yaki from botejyu

at first i wanted to eat some sushi, but it was confusing about how to order from the sushi place. they didn't seem to have a specific menu. there were little cards with the name of sushi set that you could order, but some didn't have the picture so i had no idea what it was. so i decided to skip sushi and ordered from maido okini kanku-shokudo. basically it was half self service. you had to get the tray and cutleries by yourself. they would put the main dishes on the shelves with open glass door so you can open and get it yourselves. so you could get whatever main dish that you wanted, they had salmon, mackarel, deep fried oyster or karaage, i totally forgot what the options were. but i got the deep fried oyster one. then you could get rice and miso soup as a set with the main dish. you would get the rice and miso soup from the cashier when you paid for it. afterward, you had to bring the tray back to the tray shelves. you can get your water for free from the drinking tap. taste wise, it was okay, but not mind-blowing. at least i had warm rice to fill my stomach.

back to coin locker. the one at the 2nd floor was a whole day one, but there were some coin locker at the 3rd floor that operated 3 hourly. when you counted per hour cost, obviously the whole day would cost cheaper. but if you didn't stay long in the airport, the 3 hours one would do just fine. but there were not as many as the whole day one. on the 3rd floor there were some shops and other restaurants, including muji and uniqlo. so if you wanted to do late minute purchase, you could do that in the airport. compared to haneda, it had less modern vibe to it. a bit similar to narita but narita was way bigger. kansai was smaller like haneda. there was a hotel near the airport as well, just like haneda. it had access to numerous city in west japan, unfortunately, all of them were about 1-1,5 hours from kansai. not as close as haneda to tokyo, so put that in mind when you were travelling to and from kansai. make sure you had the time allowance.