July 24-25, Osaka

The train ride between Kyoto and Osaka is remarkably short, only about 25 minutes by the express train, so we quickly found our hostel, a quaint little place with no frills but a really good location. First thing in the morning we decided to wander over to the Osaka-jo, a castle that was only about two blocks away. Despite the overpowering heat, the grounds were beautiful and an interesting experience. The inside of the castle has been turned into a museum with lots of historical things and stuff inside (hard to tell when everything's in Japanese). The moat was massive though, the wall built with stones that ranged up to 16 tons, and somehow they managed to make it over 100 feet high. Unbelievable.


The heat was so intense that even at only 11 o'clock, you could fry an egg on my head. So we decided to hop on a subway to the Osaka Aquarium. We spied an IMAX theatre right next door, so we went and bought a double pack, Aquarium plus 3D IMAX Dinosaurs! The aquarium was all kinds of amazing, I saw creatures I've read about in books, or seen in pictures and on TV. There was one tank that was boasting to be the biggest in the world, four stories tall, big enough to house two whale sharks and a plethora of other creatures. The Manta-ray may be the most graceful creature I have ever seen in my life. I advise that if anyone were to visit Osaka, the aquarium should be very high on your list of things to see. After several hours in the aquarium, we headed over to the IMAX, to watch an interesting, but not that interesting 3-D movie.


Working our way back to the hostel was easy enough, so we crashed for a little while and then went out to grab a bite to eat and try to find an area called Dotombori. This was the supposed nightlife area Osaka was famous for, with a Europetown and Amerikatown in the near area. This of course being the Japanese versions of Europetown and Amerikatown. I of course, have this lovehate relationship with maps, and although most of the time I know exactly where we are and going, sometimes, they outright lie to me ;). So we went for a nice extended tour of the area. It was nice. Eventually we found Dotombori and marvelled in its neon wonder. There were pachinko (gambling) parlors everywhere, bars, strip clubs, bookstores, restaurants, you name it. At one point we stopped in to a building that had a large pool of tub of water filled with exotic fish that you could go "fishing" for. Very strange. But it was fun, and shortly thereafter we crashed for the night.


The next day we were lazy and slept in, we found a bite to eat, and then went back to the hostel to chill out and wait to catch up with Natsuko, an old art/film school friend who grew up near Osaka, who was going to show us the town. We explored a festival that was going on, it had lots of really good food tents and a carnival-like atmosphere. However, the people kept filling in and filling in, so in the end we left and found a cool restaurant that displayed art. Natsuko had a few pieces there, and there was a lot of cool stuff hanging on the walls (decent food too). After we went looking for the fireworks, however the giant buildings were really cumbersome, and in the way, so we didn't see many fireworks (except some reflections). We chilled out in a tiny white juice bar in Amerikatown for a while, where we experimented with some fancy juice drinks. It was nice having Natsuko around, as she spoke Japanese, and we weren't waving our arms around performing charades. But our time was too short, so we said our goodbyes and left Natsuko on the last train to her city. The next morning, we headed back out on the bullet train for Mishima and Mt.Fuji.