Japan, Day 8: Departure

With this entry, I shall conclude my Japan travellogue. I wanted to finish it earlier but unfortunately, it has taken me four long years to come to the end of my writing. Much of what I wrote in the last year or so was dug out from the deepest recesses of my memory but luckily, I had taken lots of pictures and it was these pictures that I relied on for my writing.

We had arrived in Tokyo on the back of a typhoon that had diverted our flight to Incheon international airport in Seoul, Korea. We spent about six hours on the airport's benches. No thanks, of course, to AirAsia X's version of no-frills hospitality. But at least they gave us some food coupons which we were able to use in an almost empty airport terminal with only one food outlet opened.

Now, on the final day of our short family vacation, we were leaving Osaka as another rainy spell was setting in. Even Kyoto had been wet the day before. Checking out from our airbnb accommodation, we hurriedly made our way to a shopping complex in Osaka. As there was no-where else for us to explore in the rain (there went our intention to visit the Osaka castle on the final day), we spent the time eating again before catching the train to Kansai international airport.

Would we be able to undertake another vacation in Japan any time soon? To be sure, this is a most memorable destination. Good food, interesting historical and nature places to visit, impressive technology. But there is also a dark side to Japan that people nowadays tend to ignore or forget. I'm referring to the atrocities from 1941 till 1945. 

People say that time heals everything but does it? When Japan invaded this land, George Town was bombed and machinegunned mercilessly. The Japanese soldiers were cruel to the nth degree. In these four years, I've learnt so much about the sufferings of our civilian population at their hands. It will require an effort to reconcile the Japan of World War Two with the Japan of today. If I can find peace within myself for that, then yes, I can consider going there again.

Anyway, this is the last picture I want to share from our Japan trip. At the airport, there was this bottle of Louis XIII cognac from Remy Martin with a duty-free price tag of 900,000 Yen. We all dug through our pockets and our remaining Japanese Yen couldn't add up to even a small fraction of this amount. So we arrived home empty-handed except for some insignificant souvenirs. 😁😁😆😆