A TripAdvisor™ TripWow slideshow of a travel blog to Osaka, Japan by TravelPod blogger Pricklyleaf titled “Lost in Translation” Pricklyleaf’s travel blog entry: “They say that in any UK city, you are no more than 7.62 metres* away from a rat at any time. In any Japanese city, you are no more than 7.61 metres** away from a vending machine (and probably a rat as well but who cares about that anyway). Consequently there is a set of toilets every 20 metres***, to cater for the vending machines (which only ever sell drinks). Visiting tourist attractions, there are signs to warn you that there are no restrooms beyond this point. In a land of convenience, customer service and bird sounds played on repeat over speakers, bullet trains fly daily at record breaking speeds, carrying their cargo of Japanese business men, school children, elderly people and one slightly bewildered backpacker from England with a huge rucksack and a random assortment of other luggage, one bag usually containing at least two types of chocolate, or the wrappers thereof. She can also be recognised by the fact she is A: Not Japanese, B: taking photos of everything in sight, Japanese tourist style and C: smelling faintly of monkey S*** (but we’ll come back to that one another day). And so, you will probably not be too surprised by now when I tell you it took me over 3 hours to complete what could have been a 45 minute journey from the airport to my hostel. About an hour of that was spent trying to find my way …