Coming Home 11/3/10

We are at the Osaka airport waiting for our flight and they have a free internet service here so I thought I would finish up our Japan story. We went to the local bakery after breakfast to pick up muffins for our train ride and then the group went for a walk with Junko to visit a nearby garden - Shukkeien. Because today was National Culture Day, the garden was free! There were many people in fancy dress (including ladies in kimonos) who came to the tea house to celebrate the day. The garden was lovely - we saw lots of koi fish and turtles in the large pond, many curved and colorful bridges and green trees. We also saw a small garden with green tea bushes growing. They had a wonderful display of chrysanthemums outside of the tea house - quite beautiful! We came back to the hotel to pick up our carry-on bags and walked over to the railway station where we boarded the bullet train to Osaka. We then got on a local train which goes directly to the airport which is located on an island off the coast. We traveled under the two and a half mile car bridge over the water: Inland Sea on one side and Pacific Ocean on the other. We picked up our large baggage at a storage booth and stowed our small bags in the space we had left for that purpose. After checking in, we headed to passport control where we said our final "boo-foo's" to Junko who stood at the window until we had all cleared the x-ray machines. What a doll - she took care of so much for us, we didn't have to think at all about arrangements. She is so good at what she does. We will certainly give her a glowing report when we fill out the survey for OAT. We just looked up the political news on The Day, but the Judge of Probate position hasn't been decided yet as there was no information. We will have to get home to find out if Dean won or not.