Awoke at 6:30 to Jess' plaintive mewls. Between her allergies and her cold, she was miserable. She needed tea and painkillers, but wasn't with it enough to work it out. After those were provided, she perked right up though.
We headed 
down from our room to the Embassy Suites' lovely, complimentary buffet breakfast. This was not the "continental breakfast supplemented with cereal" that you typically find in hotels, it was a substantial cooked breakfast. The cheese omelets and pancakes were surprisingly good. After stuffing ourselves, we headed off to the airport.
SFO is ugly outside, like all airports, but inside it's pretty nice. We got a little taste of Japan — they have vending machines in the international terminal selling everything from shaving kits and juice to WiFi cards and iPods. (What would you do with an uncharged, empty iPod in an airport?)
Our flight to Osaka took off right on time. The friendly customer service agent who rebooked us on the flight even managed to get us exit row seats, so we had plenty of leg room. The flight was very long, but uneventful, apart from some turbulence. We watched "The Fantastic Four" (which Jess enjoyed more than Jer, though we both agreed it was a pretty silly flick), and Jer also watched "Memoirs of a Geisha" (Jess tried, but soon went back to her book).
We arrived at Kansai International Airport and eventually got through the interminable Immigration line. We were able to locate an ATM to get yen, as well as the JR rail pass booth, to exchange our vouchers for valid Japan Rail passes. Thus equipped, we made our way to the JR train to Osaka (though it took us a bit of time to figure out how to get through the automatic gates with a pass, not a ticket. The solution — show the pass to an attendant, who opens a gate).
The train ride into Osaka was a bit surreal. In addition to passing the expected residential and industrial areas, we also passed farms and commercial areas filled with neon-encrusted pachinko parlors. Pachinko is apparently something like pinball, and is a national obsession, according to the guidebook. We certainly saw enough pachinko parlors to make that seem credible.
We finally arrived at JR Osaka station, having taken the limited express rather than the airport shuttle. We followed the signs through the maze/mall under the station, until we were finally able to locate the subway we wanted. Our next challenge was buying a ticket, which we eventually managed (the machines have good instructions in English, if you can find the relevant button). We took the subway three stops south and, after a couple false starts, got our bearings and found the Comfort Hotel Shinsaibashi.
Our room was tiny, but thoughtfully-designed and very clean. We had a high-tech sit-down toilet with many buttons and no less than two large stickers with instructions. The shower ran off the sink, but had halfway reasonable water pressure. Most amusing, Jess could reach the peephole without getting on her tippie-toes.
Half-asleep, we set out in search of food. We settled on the first place we found that had pictures of their food outside. On our way in, the greeter asked us if we spoke Japanese. Well, no problem, one of the waiters spoke a little English. We settled on the miso nabe, because Jess knew what nabe is (a cook-it-yourself stew thing), and because the only other thing the waiter knew how to describe was kimchi nabe. Anyway, it was quite lovely, a pot of thick miso broth on a portable gas burner. Ours came with thin beef slices, chicken chunks, mushrooms, green onions, cabbage, and one lonely chunk of tofu. Best of all, it had konyaku (yam paste noodles), which were brown, translucent and very chewy.
After dinner, we dragged ourselves back to our room, got ready for bed as quickly as possible, and fell asleep almost immediately.