JAPAN TRAVEL DAY – UK To Osaka Japan with Hainan Airlines via Beijing China

JAPAN TRAVEL DAY – UK To Osaka Japan with Hainan Airlines via Beijing China

Hi, everyone.
I’m Mark from Travelshorts. This is my daughter Holly. That’s my son, Matthew. And welcome to the start
of another epic travel series. Over the course of the next two weeks,
we’re going to be travelling around Japan, starting in Osaka, going on to Hiroshima,
Kyoto, Nara, Hakone, and finishing in Tokyo. We’re starting here at Manchester Airport. We’re parked at Jet Parks 3,
which means we got to get a shuttle bus over to Terminal 2. Thank you. So we’ve made it to Terminal 2. Journey time on the bus was
between about 5 and 10 minutes. So Terminal 2 is the last stop
from the Jetpacks 3 car park. Went to Terminal 3 first,
then 1, and now we’re at 2. Just got to go upstairs and check
in our bags for our flight. So now we need to see what
check in desks we’re on. That’s our flight there
the 12:15 to Beijing, E 13 to 17. What I normally do when I’m travelling
with a backpack is I have an outer bag for it called an Airporter. I think it’s called from Osprey. It just protects the backpack in transit
because we don’t want any of the straps getting damaged. Oh, from our last light,
I’ll take those off as well. I think that’s from our last
flight to China last year. Okay, we’ve checked in our bags
at the desk just over there. We’re now going to go through departures,
through security, and we’ll see you the other side. We made it through security. That only took about five minutes. We didn’t even have to unpack our bags
to get our laptops and phones out. That was really easy. We’re now going to try and get
ourselves some breakfast. I think the last time I was in Terminal 2
was when I went to Hong Kong back in 2023. I’ve got a rough idea what the layout is
here because it’s quite new compared with a few years ago. They’ve had a full refurbishment here. But actually, I think first,
we’re going to go and get ourselves some bottles of water for the flight. We’ve got our bottles
of water for the flight. Now it’s time to look for some breakfast. We’ve come to the Bridgewater,
which is on the top floor here at Manchester Terminal 2. It’s actually change over time
between breakfast and lunch. It’s 10:45 now. The lunch menu starts at 11:00,
so we decided to wait, not get breakfast, and get an early lunch instead. Me and Matthew have gone for fish
and chips, and Holly has gone for mac and cheese. You probably noticed that we were checking
into a flight to Beijing then, not Japan, which I said we’re going to Japan. We’re actually flying
with Hainan Airlines, which is a Chinese-based carrier. So all their flights
from Manchester go to Beijing first. We’re then going to have a transfer around
3 hours in Beijing Airport and then catch a flight to Osaka in Japan. So it’ll be good to go to China again
because we were there last year we really enjoyed ourselves there,
but it will only be for three hours on this outward leg. It’s 11 o’clock. We’ve still got an hour and 15
minutes before our flight depart. And what’s worrying,
on the board, it’s just come up. So our gate is A12 when
it says to go to gate. I know they want people there early
and they’ll probably start boarding early, but we’ve still got an hour and 15 minutes
to go yet and we still haven’t had our dinner, well, our lunch. So hopefully this food comes really quick. We’ll eat it really quickly,
and then we’ll head over as quick as we can to the gate area. Holly’s mac and cheese has just arrived.
There we go. It’s only about three minutes,
four minutes past eleven, so we should make it in time. My fishing chips and Matthew’s fishing
chips should hopefully be coming out very soon. Good, Holly. Mine and Matthew’s
fish and chips has arrived. We’re going to eat these really quickly. I didn’t mention we always
got a glass of water each. Total cost for for these
free meals was £46.50 So we’ve finished our lunch. We’re now heading over to Gate A12. We’re getting as fast
as we possibly could. The thing is,
I know once we get to the gate, we’re only going to be waiting around
for about another 40 minutes anyway, but it’s always safer to get
to the gate on time just in case. There’s our plane there, Heinan Airlines.
Gate A12. This is the first time we’ve actually ever
flown Hainan Airlines, so I don’t know what to expect. I’ve looked online and the
planes seem pretty reasonable. It looks like there’s two different planes
that fly from Manchester direct to Beijing. One’s a really recent one,
one’s a bit older. I guess we’ll see what it’s
like when we get on board. The new one has a lot better in-flight
entertainment by the look of it. A lot nicer seat layouts. We’re going to be sitting two and two. So Matthew and Holly are going to be
together and I’m going to be sitting by myself in front of them. So we’ve just got to get A10 now. It’s already started boarding and I just
need to get my e-sim for Japan and actually for China
as well because we’ve got a layover in China. Need an e-SIM there just for the airport
because we’re going to make some purchases in the airport, get some
drinks and some snacks. So I use Airalo. I’ve been using them for a few
years now, since 2023. Really simple. So you land in the country,
you connect basically straight away. Really good price. So yeah, I’m just going to do that now. So it’s ready for when we land,
firstly in Beijing, and then the Japan one for when we land in Osaka. Ready, Holly? Yeah. We’re going to Japan. You okay, Holly?
Yeah. We made it on board the plane. I’m in seat 54A. Matthew and Holly are the seats behind me,
55A and C. I will do a complete tour of the seat once we’re airborne. we’re just pushing back from the gate now. Once we’re airborne,
I’ll tell you a lot more more about the trips that we’re going to do. Do a full tour on the plane,
because like I said, this is the first time that I’ve
ever flown on a Hainan Airlines. It’ll be interesting to take a look
what the airline is actually like. Taxi into the runway now. It should be airborne,
hopefully in a few minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, we take off shortly. Please make sure that your seatbelt
is securly fastened, mobile phones, and other electronic devices are
switched off or set in aeroplane mode. Thank you. That was a pretty smooth take-up. We took off about 10 minutes
after schedule, so about 12:25. The flight time to Beijing today is going
to be about 10 hours due to arrive 05:25 in the morning local time. I guess I’m just going to sit back, relax,
have a quick tour around this seat as well. I’ll show you guys what this
plane is like. Matthew and Holly, like I said, have
a seat behind me in this rows 55A and 55C. I’m in 54A. This one window to my left-hand side here. Really warm day today in the UK,
I’ve got this quite lightweight fleece on. Probably going to take you off
soon because there is pretty warm. It’s one of those airlines that doesn’t
have air condition that you can control. There might be a stream of air coming in,
but I can’t control that. Anyway, let’s have a look
around the seat, shall we? This is going to be a seat tour of this
Hainan Airlines flight We’re flying on a Airbus A330-300. In front of me here,
I’ve got the media console. We’ll look at that in a minute. I want to know what’s all the movies
that they’ve got on at the present time. We’ve got sickness bag, obviously the
safety card, and an in-flight magazine. That’s all in Chinese. I’ve already had a quick look through
that, so not able to read any of that, but there’s some nice pictures in there. We’ve got a tray table. One of those foldable types. In the pouch right in front of me, there’s
enough space for a bottle of water. My phone. I brought a charger and everything
inside that bag there. This is the amenity kit that we’ve got. I’ll open that a little bit later
so we can see what’s in there. It’s going to be a little bit… There’s the leg room. It’s going to be a little bit difficult
showing you a seat because I’m sitting right next to somebody and I
obviously don’t want to film them. See what it looks like there. Not much seat here,
so we can see it can recline. That’s where it looks like. And above us here, we’ve got lots of lights,
which I have to see where you must control the lights from the console here,
but there’s no air conditioner up there, so it is just automatic,
which I always prefer to be able to control the blowers myself. Anyway, let’s have a look what’s
on the video console in front of me. Let’s start this up. I got to select language. It looks like they’re
the introduction to begin with. I guess we got to wait for that to finish. It does look like there’s
adverts everywhere as well. If you look over there, there is adverts
all the way in the luggage bins. Here we go. I’m going to select English. Let’s look at Movies first. We got Paddington in Peru, Dune part 2, and How to make a Million, Gorilla, Kong, New Empire, Gladiator 2, Flight Risk. So these are the highlights of the month. I won’t read them all. I’ll just scan through
them so you can see. So that’s the highlights of the month. Looks like we got Hollywood movies. National Image Films. So that must be local Chinese movies. Chinese cinema there. I imagine it’s going to be a lot
of that because we are on a Chinese airline after all. Asian Story, European Perspective, a whole section dedicated to Marvel. Cinema greats, Oscar-winning movies, family-friendly comedies. That’s all of that. Let’s have a look what’s on TV now. You got HBO, You got English TV series. That looks the same as…
I don’t know. A lot of those ones are the same. That was on HBO. Chinese TV series, UKO, BBC Documentories, Discovery. I just flick through these real quick. Cctv Documentories, Universal Vision, Rosie Cloud, Travel. We’re actually banking to the left there,
so it’s got a gimbal on the camera, it stays level. That’s the angle of the
flight at the moment. How about the airline maybe? Hainan Airlines. Okay. It’s like maps. This is what I watch most
of the flight, usually. I will watch a couple
of movies, I think, today. But let’s have a look
what’s on the map, shall we? There we go.
That’s our flight today. Manchester.
Where did it go? Manchester, Beijing. In 10 hours, we’ll be over there. I just switched that to Tether,
but I guess that moves it around. Bunch of games on there. You’re about to see plenty
of games on your flight. It’s like you do shopping from your seat.
I not going to do that. He’s got destination info as well. That was a quick tour around our seat. I hope you could see
exactly what I’m looking at. Like I said, it’s a bit of a cramp space,
and I am sitting next to somebody, so I don’t want to be filming
with a camera in his face so I get a good shot of the seat. When If he goes to the bathroom later,
I’ll do a good video of the seat so you can get a better view of that. I think all we’re going to do
now is relax for a few hours. There is no menu, so I’m not sure
what’s going to be here for lunch. Fingers crossed, it’s going to taste nice. I’ll keep you updated along
the flight, so see you shortly. I also forgot to mention that there is
a USB charging point underneath the monitor there. If you are interested in what’s
in the amenity kit, we’ve got some socks,
we’ve got a toothbrush and a small thing of toothpaste, and we’ve also got
some earplugs and an eye mask. There we go.
That’s what’s in the amenity kit. I also got to mention on the way
to the plane, they were actually handing out the earphones. I got one, Matthew got one,
Holly’s got one. It does feel a little weird as well,
flying with Matthew and Holly, but not actually sitting by them. If you don’t can only sit in the two,
two configuration, it’s always usually a three configuration by the windows. But because we do like to sit by the
windows, I like to film out the windows. That’s why we did it in this room. We did have always sat
in the middle seats, which is a four configuration, and then
we would have got to look out the windows. I decided to sit next to somebody, so me. Holly at the moment sitting by the window. They drew straws. Holly is going to sit by the window,
flying out, and Matthew is going to fly in by the window, coming back home. What should I watch? Might be Alien Romulus. I’ve not seen that, yeah. They’ve actually run out of food
by the time they came to us. The only option is mushroom
and aspargus risotto. We had no options. There’s the mushroom and Asparaus Risotto.
Got bread roll. We’ve got some salmon, something there. Looks like maybe a chocolate
cake for dessert. Okay, just to give you a quick update,
we’re about two hours into the flight. As you saw, we just had
the dinner service now. I mentioned, I don’t know if you could
actually hear it, but as we were in the last couple of rows
where they were bringing the meals out, we didn’t have any option at all. We just had to have the mushroom
and aspargus risotto. I felt completely honest,
it didn’t taste very nice at all. Holly didn’t really eat it,
Matthew didn’t like it, but got no option, so we had to have it. You saw me put Alien Romulus
on to watch that movie. After about five minutes in,
I just realised I’ve actually seen that film before, so I’ve turned it off. There isn’t really much
else that I want to see. I might see Dune 2, well,
part 2, but I’m not sure. We’ve just gone over Russian airspace. That’s the thing with Hainan Airlines,
because the Chinese carrier does fly over Russia unlike Western Airlines,
which the airspace is restricted. That’s why the flight to Beijing
is only 10 hours today. If we’re flying with British Airways, or
Western one, it’d be about 2 hours extra. I’m going to head back to my seats. It’s really awkward filming because I’ve got
a guy just over my shoulders, so I’ll do my best to continue on, but I’m
not sure how this is going to turn out. See you back in the seat. You okay, Holly? Having fun? The guy beside me has just gone
to the bathroom, so it’s a perfect opportunity to show you what chairs look like. As you can see, when people are in front
of you recline, there’s basically no space at all. Here’s the chair. There’s the chair. You can move the headrest
up and down a little bit. That’s the chair itself. There’s the leg room. That’s how much space you’ve got,
just in front of you. But as you can see, it’s literally
when the person reclines in front. It’s only about almost an arm length
from the chair in front to the actual chair there. There’s There’s Holly behind,
and there’s Matthew behind. There we go. Holly, having fun?. The bathroom is over there. Also, these Two in the back
as well, over there. The cabin crew have come around as well
and made sure everybody shuts their window. We’ve still got eight hours to go until we
land in Beijing, or just under eight hours. We’re currently over Russia. Just entered Russian airspace, actually,
about 20 minutes ago, just before I went to the bathroom. Nothing much more I could say
about the flight, actually. So there I am in my seat. It is a full flight, if I’m honest,
but I guess in business class, it’s not very busy because
when we were checking in, there was a guy trying to sell us upgrades
to business class. He was £700 each if we wanted to switch
from economy to business class. If I was by myself,
I might have potentially done that, but £700 for three people, not a hope. I’m not going to do that. The whole reason actually we came on this
flight and we’re going to Japan is because I was able to get really amazing price
seats on this flight today and return back from Tokyo in a couple of weeks time. So altogether, for our return flights
to Japan, it’s less than £1,500 for all three of us. It was £1,400 and something. Mine and Matthew’s seats were in the £400
and something range, and Holly being high £300s. But I’ll actually put on the screen
here exactly how much this flight costs. So it’s by there or by there somewhere. So that’s the flight of this,
this return flight to Japan. So we’re flying on Hainan Airlines,
as you’re probably aware by now. We’re going Manchester to Beijing,
three hours layover of Beijing, then on to Osaka,
and then returning in a couple of weeks time from Tokyo, Tokyo to Beijing. That’s going to be a really long layover. That’s going to be 10 hours in Beijing. I’m really not looking forward to that. Due to the timings,
we couldn’t actually leave Beijing, go into the city, then come back. Because We’ve still got our two-year
multi-entry visa from when we went to China last year,
and then from Beijing back to Manchester. So real bargain. We basically paid for the three of us
less than a one single person’s flight when I was looking to come
here over the Easter holidays. Cheapest flights I could see over
the Easter School break was £1600 return. We’re going in the end of May School break
now, and we’re paying less than that for all three of us,
which is a really good deal. I just wanted to let all you guys know
that to accompany this travel series which, I think I’m going
to call our Epic Japan Trip. I’ve actually produced a travel guide.
It’s It’s totally free. You can download it using the description
down below or scanning the QR code on the screen here. I’ll tell you more about in a minute
because the guy is coming back to his seat now. We’ve got about five hours left
of our flight before we arrive in Beijing. I did try to watch Dune part 2,
but just the audio in the earphones were not very good,
so I turned that off. We’re currently flying over Siberia. It’s still not dark outside here. I just looked out the window. It looks like a sunset. I’m not sure what the local time is here. In Beijing, it’s just after midnight,
so I’ve got to guess it’s maybe four hours or three hours before that local time. Anyway, I’m going to see if they’ve got
these snacks at the rear of the plane. Sometimes on airlines,
they do have snacks and drinks at the rear of the plane, so I’ll check that out now. We’ve got some snacks.
What have we got, Holly? Some crackers. Cumin-flavoured corn snacks. I got some cheese. So Matthew has made himself
some cream cheese on a cracker. Hopefully, it’s not too messy. What is that like? Is that Tastes like nothing. This is our breakfast. It looks like stir-fried
noodles with some pork. We got bread roll. We got some melon and pineapple there, nothing in there, and a yoghurt. I’ll tell you a little
bit more about this later. Holly doesn’t like it. The guy next to me has just gone
to the bathroom, so I’ll just tell you a little bit about that breakfast shall I. They started the breakfast service. We have 2 hours,
40 minutes to go before landing. It took about 20 minutes to get to us. Then in the rowing front,
they actually ran out of food. We’re row 54 I’m row 54, I should say. Matthew and Holly are 55. They start from the back. I go to row 56 and stop the service. They start a service in front of us. I’m not sure, maybe around
the 30s, and they get to us. We’re on that cycle coming forward to us. Like I said, row in front. They then ran our food
and then just went away. They came back about seven
or eight minutes later. There was no options. It was just stir-fried pork noodles,
which I don’t think is breakfast food, judging by what other people were having
at a different coloured tinfoil pack that it was in. That must have just been left
over from someone in an emergency. That’s probably all
the food they had on board. That’s what they brought us. Mine was lukewarm. Matthew and Holly’s said was warm,
so at least Matthew had warm food. Holly didn’t really like it. But yeah, I really don’t think that was
our correct breakfast. So if you are flying Hainan Airlines, don’t sit in rows 54 and 55 because that’s the very end of the meal service,
so you’re not likely to get what you want. This is probably a good fit to tell there. I’ve actually created
a guidebook to Japan. It’s called the Travelshorts Guide to Japan. It’s totally free. It contains all the information about our
trip, all the places we stayed, the activities we did,
tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way. It looks like it’s going to be about 50
pages long because I’m doing a lot of research about this trip. It’s partly written already, but it’ll
be finished by the time we get home. It only takes me a good week
or two to design these guides. Like I said, it’s totally free of charge,
so you can just click on the link in the description down below,
or I’ll also put a QR code on screen up here somewhere where you
could scan and download it. Just like everything I do with this
YouTube channel, I do this for fun, not for profit, so I’ll never
ask anybody for Patreon. Buy me a coffee, subscribe to my channel,
send me a super chat, buy my merchandise. I purely just do this
for fun and enjoyment. I hope you guys who watch this actually
enjoy what you’re seeing as well. One thing that really winds me up when I
watch travel YouTubers is the first thing they say. Well, within the first few words that they
say, they say, subscribe to my Patreon channel. As soon as they do that,
I turn it off because I’m I’m from the original
infancy of the internet where everybody used to help everybody out. In fact, I’ve had this YouTube
channel for over 18 years now. Before I had this channel,
I used to upload travel videos just the internet, even before
YouTube used to exist. It used to be Google Video. I used to upload to, and then obviously,
Google bought out YouTube. Even before this channel,
I had another one on YouTube when they first started, when I stopped,
uploaded to that when I to develop the Travelshorts channel. I will never ask you for money,
anything like I said. But if you do feel like you wanted
to donate anything because of what you’ve seen, I don’t want that money at all. I do have a link in the description down
below to a charity that I support, the Motor Neurone Disease Association,
otherwise known as ALS. If you ever feel like you want to give
anything, don’t give that to me. Give that straight to charity. It’s a charity that’s
really close to my heart. Thank you once again. We’ve got an hour and a half
before we arrive in Beijing. It’s just starting to get light now. I’ve opened the window shutter.
Do you want to have a little look? As you can see, the sun is just
starting to come up a little bit. There are some lights down
there as well, I think. Looking at the map, we’re flying
over Mongolia at the moment. So there’s Ulaanbaatar. We were actually due to go to Ulaanbaatar
back in 2021 and 2022 when we were going to go and do
an epic for the most epic trip I’ve ever planned in my life where we were
actually going to get a train from North Wales, where we live,
all the way to Hong Kong. Obviously, changing trains along the way,
where it was going to be an unbroken overland adventure from
North Wales to Hong Kong. I had five and a half weeks of work. We’re going to do it through
the school summer holidays. But obviously, everybody knows
what happened in 2020 and 2021. And then after that, China had been closed
for a couple of years, so we couldn’t trip. We eventually went to China last year,
in March and April of 2024. So if you’re interested in watching
the China videos, I’ve got a whole set of them on my channel. So just look at the
playlists on my channel. You see loads of China
travel videos on there. You okay, you too? Yeah.
Yeah. Only about an hour and a half to go. You can see that part’s a lot like to me. It’s still to see We’ve now got just over an hour left before we arrive at Beijing Airport. They’ve just come on the loud speaker just
to say the entry procedure is what you need to do and what you
can’t bring into the country. If you’re feeling ill and have
an infectious disease, you need to declare that to the customs officer. Also, if you bring in giant clams,
bird’s nests, fresh fruit, vegetables, and fresh meat,
and also aquatic species, they need to be declared,
to be declared to the customs people. So should be arriving soon. Might like to it be good to be in Beijing
again, even if we are only going to be there for about three hours. And it looks like the sun is just about
to rise on the horizon over there. I think we picked the right
side of the plane to sit on. While we’re in the light, shall we? Let’s make sure that your seatbelt is securly fastened
thank you. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Beijing. We will be arriving in terminal 2
at Beijing Capital Airport not open the overhead compartment. Unitil the aircraft has come
to a complete stop for those passengers who are continuing
to out of the city as a Hainan Airlines flight, this call to the ground floor
for your check-in-luggage information. Find your dreams fly Hainan Airlines,
and I look forward to seeing you again. Thank you and goodbye. That’s it. We’ve arrived at Beijing Capital Airport. What we’re going to do now is try and find
the signs that say transit, and make our way to our next flight. There’s our plane that we’ve just come
from, all the way from Manchester. So transfer to the right. So just as we arrived as Well,
my Airalo e-SIM for China kicked in, literally while we were
still on the runway. I took my phone off aeroplane mode,
and within a minute, I had data for here in China. Probably won’t need it for a while,
but if we decide to eat something in one of the cafés or restaurants here over
the next three hours will need to use Alipay, and we need data to do that. If you’re not familiar with Alipay,
that’s basically… In China nowadays,
there’s cashless payments everywhere, either via Alipay or WeChat. We had all that set up last
year when we came to China. So I just reactivated
Alipay just a few days ago before we departed and came here today. Okay, we don’t know what gate we’re in. So we need to find a screen
to see what gate we’re on. OK, Holly. Look, gates 1-11 is up there,
and gates 12-18 are up there. Now, I’m going to be honest,
that took an awfully long time going through security,
a lot longer than I thought, just because the amount of camera
equipment I’ve got in my rucksack here. First of all, I just describe
what we actually did. So we just went through the transfer
doors through the transfer to desk there. First of all, they shouted us because
we were in it all in three in one go. So they shouted Matthew
and Holly to go back. But that’s okay.
I guess they just wanted a single file. Then we went through security itself. I took my usual things on my bag,
my laptop, a couple of power banks, one of the cameras. But then it had kept going through
and going through because every single item had to come out my bag in the end. Because as you know me, I do travel
with a lot of electronic equipment. Every Every single thing had to come out
the bag and it went around a few times and a few times more. We’re looking to fill our bottle up now. Here’s some drinking water, it says. Let’s go and get some drinking water. Our first priorities is to fill our
water bottles with some nice cool water. I’ve already done mine.
There’s Matthew doing his. I wasn’t really having to go to security
for taking so long doing all that. I know they’re doing their job and it’s
always better to be on the side of caution and be safe,
especially when you’re in an airport and you’re about to fly. I’m happy that security really
thorough going through people’s bags. That fills me with a lot more confidence
when we’re going on airlines, that nobody’s snuck something a bit naughty in. So we’re in Terminal 2. It’s still pretty early.
What time is it? About 6:00 in the morning. 6:20 in the morning. We’ve got a good couple of hours here. We’re going to try and find a screen
somewhere to actually say what gate our flight is going to be going from. There’s our flight, the 8:45 HU473.
Coming to Osaka. I have to say Osaka there. It’s a code share
by the look of it with JD. I’m not sure what airline is JD. It’s going to go from gate 7. What I think we’re going to do now is have
a good look around in this terminal 2, Because on the flight back,
we’ve got a pretty long layover here. I want to see what is here,
especially all the places to eat. Like I said, a long layover coming back. We’re going to be having our dinner
and our breakfast here on the way home. Not sure, but this might be
our flight to go to Osaka. By there. Still got a good couple
of hours yet, though. Got ourselves the Starbucks there. We’re going to keep walking. We’re going to do a complete loop
of Terminal 2 just so we know what’s here. So I think we’ve finished
our tour around Terminal 2. Lots of duty free shops,
lots of makeup shops. One Starbucks, two restaurants which are
exactly the same, one each side. So here’s a map of the Terminal if
you are going to be coming here. Like I said, there’s only
two main restaurants. Convenient Shop, Starbucks.
That’s it. Just the duty free,
cosmetics and liquor and tobacco shop. Quite small, actually. Matthew said he’s spotting a bit
of a convenience store, which we’re going to go to now buy some crisps. So we’ve just been
to the Chinese Commodities Shop by there, which sold a few snacks. We got ourselves some Lay’s crisps. When we were in China last year,
we actually love these ones, didn’t we, Holly?
It tastes really nice. It’s like a same style as Pringles. Everywhere we went, in China,
we always bought a pack of these. Matthew and Holly got a Dove bar each. Back in the UK, these
are known as Galaxy. Holly got a small little bottle of water. Altogether, this came to you 36 RMB,
which is around £3.50 Still as good as it were last time?
Yeah. What I’m going What I do now is I didn’t
have time before we left home, so there’s two ways to get into Japan. You can either just turn up and fill
in a paper-based form to go through immigration,
or you can fill in all your details on the visitjapan web,
and then you get a QR code and you can just walk through immigration when
you get to, well, Osaka in our case. I was just going to do the paper-based one
when we get there, but we’ve got a few hours here in
Beijing Airport, so I thought I would just register on visitjapan.
Web now. I’ve done mine. Next is going to be Matthew’s your
passport, so you just scan your passport details,
enter a little bit of information, and that’s all you need to do. I’ll do that now.
Thank you Holly for filming me. We’re all registered
on the visitjapan web app. Took about 10 minutes in total,
so I had to enter all our passport details, what flight we’re going to be
arriving on, and sign some custom declarations about
what we’re not bringing into the country. Now, when we do get into Osaka,
we’ve just got to show a QR code each, and we should, hopefully, fingers crossed,
whiz through security. While we’re sitting here waiting for our
flight to Osaka, I want to tell you a little bit about the trip itself. We’re going to fly into Osaka,
as I’ve just mentioned quite a few times. Where is it?
I’ll wait for that to finish. The Tannoy announcement has just finished. Like I was saying,
we’re going to fly into Osaka. We’re going to arrive at Kansai Airport. We’re then going to get the airport
Express into Osaka itself. We’re going to be starting off in Namba. That’s where our hotel is
for the next two nights. We’re staying at the Monterey
Grassmere Hotel right by Namba Station. We’re going to have two
whole days in Osaka. Then we’re going to go for a day trip
to Hiroshima and Miyajima Island, just for one day. Then come back to Osaka,
where we’re going to spend two days in Universal Studio Japan. First time ever going to that theme park,
so we’re really looking forward to it. After we’ve finished in Universal,
we’re then going to go to Nara and then on to Kyoto. We’re going to two nights in Kyoto
before finally heading to Tokyo. Then in Tokyo, we’re going to have two
days going around the city, one day going out to Hakone to, hopefully,
fingers crossed, see Mount Fuji. Then we’re going to spend another
four days at Tokyo Disneyland. Two days in Tokyo Disneyland itself,
and then two days in Tokyo DisneySea before flying home. In total, we’re going to be in Japan
for 15 days, and we’re really looking forward to it, aren’t we, Holly? Yeah. What’s the difference in Tokyo Disneyland
and Tokyo DisneySea? They’re two separate parks
are still in Tokyo Disney. Is it DisneySea like Sea
animals or something like that? No animals. It’s still a theme park
with lots of rides. That’s where fantasy springs is,
where the frozen ride is. What is the ride? Here’s Mount Geeser. Mount Geeser. There’s no Mount Geeser. There’s Mount Prometheus. What’s the Mount? Mount.
Mount Fiji? Yeah. Yeah, that’s what we’re going
to go and see when we go to Hakone. It’s the tallest mountain in Japan. Yes.
Fingers crossed, we’re going to see it. As I mentioned on the flight,
just so we arrived in Beijing, we did come to China last year,
and we spent 23 days touring around. Started in Beijing here. Then we went to Xi’an, Shanghai, Chengdu,
Guilin, Yangshuo, and finished up in Hong Kong. Like I said, you can find all
those videos on my channel. Just look for the epic China trip. If you are coming to China,
I did produce a guidebook for China as well, like I’ve done for Japan. Again, that is totally free. I won’t charge you anything for it. I won’t even ask for your email address. If you are interested in
Travelshort’s Guide to China, the link obviously will be
in the description down below or just scan the QR code on the screen here,
and you’ll be able to download it free of charge straight away. I think we’ve got about an hour and 10
minutes for our flight, so we’re in the quiet section here. But I think, do you want to head over
to our gate, gate number 7, to see if it’s going to start boarding soon? No? Yeah, I think we will. They’ve just announced that our
flight is going to be boarding. They’re not calling it by seat numbers,
so we’ve just joined the queue. Hopefully, you should be
on the plane in a few minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Hainan Airlines. If you want to upgrade,
please contact us, thank you. We’ve made it onto our plane. We’re on the very first to board. We’re sitting next to each other this time
unlike the previous flight, so that’s always a bonus. This is going to be a really short flight. I think it’s just under three
hours to get to Osaka today. Before we take off, I think I
do a really quick seat tour. We’re flying today on a Boeing 737-8. No screen in front of us
either like the previous one. This is just a short haul flight. We got a safety card in there
and a stick bag. The tray table, there. Quite a small pouch in front of us.
I’ve just got… This is a complimentary bottle
of water that they gave us. There’s We’ve got one each. I’ve just put my cables in there,
but there is actually no USB charging in the seat, so don’t really need that. Got a window seat. This is a row 47, A, B, and C. Actually, number 47 has got two windows,
which is always a bonus. But the seats look like
theres Matthew and Holly. Not that very much leg room as
you can see with Matthew there. The seats do recline,
but we won’t be doing that on this flight. But that was it. A really quick seat tour on our
Hainan Airlines flight to Osaka. We’re still pretty early. It’s 8:05 now and we’re not
due to depart until 8:45. So potentially we’re going to be on board
for another 40 minutes before we take off. See you guys soon. I stand mistaken. They just come over the loud speech to say
that the flight time is two and a half hours. So that’s half an hour
shorter than I thought. That’s a bonus. So may I remind you of passing now,
there may be turbulance. We wish you a pleasant flight.
Thank you. Did you hear that?
What? Turbulence. There might be a bit of turbulence, Holly. We push back from the gate,
and now we’re taxiing to the runway. Hopefully, we should be in the air
in the next few minutes. That was a relatively smooth
take off from Beijing. We have to let really lovely
clear skies today in Beijing. Unfortunately, looking at the weather
forecast for Osaka, just before we left. It is going to be raining today when we
arrive, and probably all evening as well. Well, about a 65%
chance of rain this evening. Fingers crossed, it won’t be too much, but
I guess we are going to have to experience some rain. Over the next few days,
it’s actually going to rain. Not just for today as well. I didn’t check any further than that. Hopefully, it will clear up
for the rest of the trip. For these first few days, I guess we
just going to have to wear our raincoats. Like I mentioned earlier,
flight time today will be about two and a half hours, so it is
a relatively short flight. I do my usual things, film at the windows,
film Matthew and Holly, film the landing. If anything interesting
does happen, I’ll let you guys know. I don’t think there’ll be a meal service
on board because it is two and a half hours.
If there is, I’ll film that as well. I found the USB port. It’s by there. It’s good to know.
It means I could charge my phone. It looks like they’re coming
around with a meal service as well. That’s a bonus.
This is what we’ve got for breakfast. We’ve got a box with some pastries, some bread, some fruit, some yoghurt. Not sure what that is. I’ve got chicken noodles and a Pepsi. To be honest, it’s pretty awkward to eat
because that big cardboard box takes up quite a lot of space. I’ve just got the chicken noodles there. I did wake up Matthew and Holly to see if
they wanted anything, but they decided they don’t want anything. They just want to sleep. I’m going to tuck in and eat this now. That tasted really good. Far nicer than the two meals
we had on the previous flight. Yeah, really happy with that. We got about 25 minutes before we land. The cabin crew have just come around. Just asking everybody
to put their seats back up. Making sure
no tray tables are down. Hopefully, we’ll be on the ground shortly. We did hit a little bit of turbulence
about half an hour back. Waved the airplane back
a two for a little bit. The seat belt light came on,
so we always keep our seat belt. It’s not during the whole flight anyway,
but a lot of people like to put the seat belt on. Last in for about maybe 10 minutes. Not too bad. And nothing really major. So you guys are on the ground. Welcome to Osaka. Well, we’ve landed
at Osaka Kansai International Airport. As you can probably see,
it is raining outside. Not sure how strong the rain is,
but we’re taxiing to our gate. We’ve landed in Terminal One. Hopefully, when we pull up to the gate,
it’s a case of going through security, getting our bags,
and then catching the airport Express to Namba, and then go to our hotel. Shuttle Station for Arrival and Transfer. Now we need to find out
where our luggage is. Let’s go to that screen there. Number three. There, Beijing. We’ve seen our first
suitcase over by there. Theres our first bag. And there’s our second bag. What we’re going to do now is just take
some of the stuff out of the hand luggage, put them in the case,
probably get our waterproof jackets out as well, and then head
towards the train station. We’re going to head to 2F,
which is the railways, and it’s that way. We’ve just picked up our JR passes
from the JR ticket office behind us there. We haven’t gone for the full JR rail pass
because that’s a bit expensive and it actually isn’t worthwhile
financially for us to get that. We picked up the JR Kansai Hiroshima Pass. I’ll tell you more about that in three
days time when we go to Hiroshima. But we picked it up from there
just for future reference. Now we’re going to get our
tickets from the Nanki thing. Right ahead of us there. This is going to take us to Namba Station,
which is where our hotel is. So let’s get some tickets. Ours is going to be the next train. We’re actually going on the Rapido,
which is less stops than the train that just went in front of us there. We’ve also got reserved seating as well,
so we’re guaranteed a seat, and it’s a little bit more comfortable as well. We’re going to be in car 3. Seats 1, 2, and 11. I’m hoping the 11 is a single seat
opposite Matthew and Holly, who are seating in 1 and 2. Total price for this is 3,380 ¥. We will be making brief stops at Rinkun town, Isuvi Salo, Haya Chaya, and Ruzhising Imamiya. The next stop is Rincun town,
station number MK31. We made on to the Rapido. Matthew and Holly are sitting
behind me over there. I’m about four seats in front
on the opposite side. We’ve already gone to,
I think, two stations. I think there’s six stops in total,
so we’re probably halfway there. When we get to Namba, we’ll walk to our
hotel, which is the Windermere Grassmere. Not Windermere it is the Monterey Grassmere. Time now, actually, is 2:20, so
we should be able to check into our room. So checking time is usually three o’clock. I think they’re pretty strict as well
about checking, so you can’t really check in early. But the fact that it’s
approaching three o’clock, seeing by the time we get there
and walk from the station to the hotel. So we might be able to check
into the room, freshen up a bit, and then go and explore the town, or the city even. Some people have got off at that stop,
so I’ve come to sit by Matthew and Holly by there. We will soon be arriving at Namba. Station number NK01. Our final stop. So that took about 40 minutes from Kansai
International Airport to Namba Station. We’re going to go out the North gate
because our hotel is a bit further north than the train station. So that was our Rapido
from Kansai Airport. We’re now going to go that way
and leave Namba Station. Fingers crossed, 3F is the correct
exit to leave Namba Station. Like I said, our hotel, the Monterey
Grassmere, is north of Namba Station. So hopefully by going out the north exit,
we should be a little bit closer. It looks like we’re going to be
going outside in the rain. The rain’s not very heavy,
so we didn’t put our waterproof jackets on or got our umbrella out of the bag. Should be another five minute
walk to the hotel, hopefully. Matthew just pointed out
there’s a statue thingy there. There we go.
I wonder who that is? It should just be another few minutes ahead of us on this road here. We’ve just spotted our hotel,
Hotel Monterey, right by there. I believe check-in is on the 22nd floor. So let’s hop over there now. We have arrived. Okay, thank you. Well, we’ve arrived. I’ll do a a full room tour in just a
second once we settle in for a little bit. See you in a second. So we’ve just arrived here at the
Hotel Monterey Grassmere in Osaka. We’re going to go and do a quick
room tour of our room, which is 2834. So Well, let’s go in. As soon as you come in,
there is a vanity mirror there. Hello. We’ve got some complimentary
slippers on the floor. Let’s start in the bathroom, shall we? So we’ve got standard Japanese toilet
bathroom with a bidet function. We have got quite a few
amenities, actually. Body towels, headbands, combs, razors, cotton buds, tooth brushes, and mouthwash as well. There’s a sink. Got a hand foam there. Mirror on the wall. Shower there, over the bath. Got A few body washes,
shampoos, conditioners there. Quite a few towels. And as we go into the main room,
so this is a family room. So we’ve got a triple room,
so three single beds. We’ve also got a few chairs there as well,
where Holly’s sitting down after a long flight to get here. Tv. Let’s have a look what we’ve got in here. Okay, tea and coffee making facilities. Oh, a vanity mirror there. Is this what you want
me to talk about, Holly? That vanity mirror? I guess it’s not plugged in,
but I’m assuming the light will come on when we press that. Notepad, laundry bags,
information about spa treatments and the hotel there. Okay.
Oh, yeah. And it also give Holly this little
gift when we checked in as well. We’ll have a look at that later,
It’s got the plugs there, hair dryer, some tissues,
three complementary bottles of water. There’s, it looks like a pod coffee
machine, drip pod, with four different types of coffees in there. Got wardrobe here. It’s coat hangers. That’s about it.
I don’t know what that is. It’ll be Fabries or something. Fabric and air freshener. Haven’t really seen
that in a hotel before. Let’s take a look at the view. So we’re on floor 28,
so we have got a pretty high floor. And it’s actually a really
good view of the city as well. So this is the city view room. Oh, yeah, I’m quite
impressed by that view. And then one last look at the room here.
So the three beds. Oh, and we’ve also got some pyjamas. By the set of pyjamas each. I was just saying, dear guests,
take the environment. Okay, so about how they do the laundry. Telephone, two plugs by there. Anything in here?
No, that doesn’t open. And that’s it. That’s our tour of the Hotel Monterey,
Grassmere in Osaka in the Namba area. If you are interested,
I actually booked this hotel via trip.com in fact, every hotel we’re staying at during this trip to Japan was booked by trip.com. I found them to have the best prices
from everywhere I was looking at when I came to booking this holiday. If you are interested in this hotel,
I will leave a link in the description down below to it,
or you can also scan this QR code on the screen here, which will take you
directly to this hotels page on trip.com oh, I forgot to mention one thing as well. Just as we arrived into Kansai Airport,
just the same as in China, I had a e-SIM with Airalo for Japan. As soon as we landed
and started taxiing to the gate. That kicked in and I was getting data
even before we departed the plane. So like I mentioned at the very beginning
of this video, I’ve been using the Airalo since 2023 for all our
international holidays. Never really had an issue
with them at all. Always really happy with them. So that’s why I’m happy to recommend
them every time I go abroad. Not sponsored by them. I’m just really happy with the product
and the service that it offers. So if you are interested in getting Airalo
e-SIMS for your travels around the world, I will put a link in the description down
below, or again, you can scan the QR code on the screen here to go
directly to Airalo. Sorry, Holly, I think that QR code
is going to be blocking your face. And if you use my referral code,
which I’m going to put on the screen here, you’ll get $3
off your first purchase. So I think that’s going to end our travel
day coming here to Osaka, all the way from Manchester yesterday. So we departed, when was it? 12:15?
Something like that. Uk time on Friday. It’s now after three o’clock
in the afternoon on Saturday. So I hope you’ve enjoyed
this travel video. We’re really tired, but we’re
still not going to end here. We’re off to Osaka and specifically,
Dontonburi area for our food shortly and to have a tour around. That will be in the next video. So we’re going to spend the afternoon
and the evening touring around Osaka. So I hope you watch
next video to see that. And again, like I said,
we’re here for just over two weeks. So we’re going to do daily
vlogs from our travels here. But this is going to be the end of our
travel day coming here to Japan. So I hope you’ve enjoyed watching it. If you are new here, my name is Mark,
and along with my son, Matthew and daughter Holly, we make Travel and
Theme Park videos from around the world. Now, Holly, you’re going to do
your special message for everybody. If you like this video,
please remember to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell button.
Bye. Bye. Next time on Travelshort’s Epic Japan Trip.

Join us as we travel from the UK to Osaka in Japan via Beijing, China with Hainan Airlines..
👉 Free Japan Guide Book PDF with all our tips, tricks, best hotels, places to visit and more. https://bit.ly/TravelshortsJapan

This is the start of our Epic Japan trip and we begin it at Manchester Airport we get a Hainan Airlines flight to Beijing.

The flight to Beijing took 10 hours and then we were in transit for just over 3 hours before catching another place to Osaka Kansai Airport in Japan.

At Osaka Kansai Airport we got the Nanki Rapid Train into Osaka and then checked into our hotel the Hotel Monterey Grasmere in Namaba.

Stay tuned for more daily vlogs from our Epic Japan Trip.
________________________
All my Japan Links:
___
Travelshorts Guide to Japan:
👉 Totally FREE 56 page Guidebook: https://bit.ly/TravelshortsJapan
___
Accommodation:
👉 Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka: https://bit.ly/MontereyGrasmere
👉 The Park Front Hotel at Universal Studios Japan: https://bit.ly/UniversalParkFront
👉 Henn na Hotel Kyoto: https://bit.ly/HennKyoto
👉 Asakusa View Hotel Tokyo: https://bit.ly/AsakusaView
👉 Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay: bit.ly/SheratonGrandTokyo
👉 Tokyo Disneyland Partner Hotels: https://bit.ly/TDLRPartners
___
Activities:
👉 Umeda Sky Building: https://bit.ly/UmedaSkyTicket
👉 Ninja Experience Cafe Osaka: https://bit.ly/NinjaOsaka
👉 Dotonbori River Cruise: https://bit.ly/TonboriCruise
👉 Expo 2025 Tickets: https://bit.ly/OsakaExpoTKTS
👉 Tokyo Go Karting Experience: https://bit.ly/TokyoGoKarts
👉 Osaka Castle: https://bit.ly/OsakaCastleTickets
👉 Shibuya Sky: https://bit.ly/ShibuyaSkyTKTS
👉 Tokyo Skytree: https://bit.ly/TokyoSkytreeTicket
👉 Teamlab Borderless: https://bit.ly/TeamlabBorderless
👉 Teamlab Planets: https://bit.ly/TeamlabPlanets
👉 Tokyo Tower: https://bit.ly/TokyoTowerTKTS
👉 Mount Fuji Tours: https://bit.ly/FujiTours
👉 Arashiyama Tours: https://bit.ly/ArashiyamaTours
👉 Kyoto Samurai & Ninja Museum: https://bit.ly/KyotoSamurai
👉 Kyoto Tower: https://bit.ly/KyotoTowerTKTS
👉 Nara Day Trip: https://bit.ly/NaraDayTrip
___
Theme Parks:
👉 Universal Studios Japan Tickets: https://bit.ly/USJTKTS
👉 Universal Studios Japan Express Tickets: https://bit.ly/USJEx
👉 Tokyo Disneyland Ticket: https://bit.ly/TDLTicket
👉 Tokyo Disney Sea Ticket: https://bit.ly/TDSTicket
👉 Sanrio Puroland: https://bit.ly/SanrioPurolandTKTS
👉 Studio Ghibli Tickets: https://bit.ly/StudioGhibliTKTS
👉 Warner Bros Studio Tour Tokyo: https://bit.ly/WarnerBrosStudioTokyo
___
Transport:
👉 Trip.com, the best place to get Flights, Hotels and Activities: https://bit.ly/TripFlights
👉 Japan Train Tickets: https://bit.ly/JapanTrainTKTS
👉 JR Kansai-Hiroshima Area Pass: https://bit.ly/JRKansai
👉 Hakone Free Pass: https://bit.ly/Hakonepass
👉 Osaka Nankai Rapi:t Ticket: https://bit.ly/NankiTrain
👉 Kansai Airport Transfers: https://bit.ly/KansaiLimo
👉 Haneda Airport Transfers: https://bit.ly/HanedaLimo
👉 Narita Airport Transfers: https://bit.ly/TokyoLimo
___
Other:
👉 Airalo Esim: https://bit.ly/Airalo-ESIM use referral code MARK6579 to get $3 off.
👉 Astrill VPN, my favourite VPN: https://bit.ly/TS-VPN
👉 Osaka to Kyoto Luggage Delivery Service: https://bit.ly/OsakaKyotoLuggage

For all Klook links use code TRAVELSHORTSKLOOK for 5% off
* Please note that these are affiliate codes which I may receive a commission on at no additional cost to you.
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Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:19 Manchester Airport
00:06:52 Hainan Airlines flight to Beijing
00:33:11 Beijing Airport
00:43:46 Hainan Airlines Beijing to Osaka Flight
00:51:26 Osaka Kansai Airport
00:53:54 Nanki Rapid Train to Osaka
00:58:35 Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka