Osaka

Monday, July 1st

The first thing we did out of the station was go to another Coco curry and have lunch, after which we dropped off our bags in the airbnb, which was next to the station as well. We walked around the Shinseka area (lots of Shinshinkai jokes with Nick), which had a lot of interesting restaurants and even a few arcades!

There was a restaurant advertising “sumo sized” portions

We went to Don Quixote to pick up random stuff; I got some magnets to give out to family, and paper crane earrings!

Below the store were rows and rows of people on slot machines. It was kinda scary, felt like some sort of bizarre farm. Back on the main street, we found a game place where we played ping pong and darts!

We realized that our airbnb had a washer but no dryer, so we went back to Don Quijote (by this time, their little jingle was stuck in my head for the rest of the trip) to get clothespins. After we did some much needed laundry, we went to an Okonomiyaki place for dinner. It seemed very much like a local favorite, with one lady doing everything from taking orders, cooking, etc. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake with lots of cabbage! I got mine with just egg batter, cabbage, green onion, nori and sauce (had to custom order since otherwise nothing vegetarian!). It was really interesting eating it hot from the grill at our table!

Afterwards, we went to a sushi place!

We noticed they had a “buy 2 get 1 free” deal on beer (per person, not split across the table). As we were on our second beer, the owner (?) came over and asked if we wanted the free round, and when we nodded he cackled and knowingly patted me on the back. Fun guy!

I noticed as we were leaving, I actually recognized a song on the radio! It was Anri “Can’t stop the loneliness”.

Afterwards, we went to a music bar at chatted with a couple Canadian students at the crowded bar. The Bartender said he was working on a city pop album! So we talked about Mariya Takeuchi, Tatsuo Yamashita, and Anri briefly.

Tuesday, July 2nd

We went to Dotonbori for a late breakfast (early lunch?), which is a popular shopping area in Osaka. It was super busy even in the morning! Unfortunately for me, I had to eat a combination of convenience store food and Taco Bell of all things in order to get vegetarian food.

Afterwards, Nick peeled off to look for small-lens sunglasses (he saw a monk with Tokyo with them and was obsessed ever since) and the rest of us went to Happy Pancake and were very happy with the pancakes indeed.

Each order came with three pancakes, so naturally we shared each order! We decided to go to Nara, but Nick wasn’t available so we went on without him. It was about an hour long train to Nara, and a bit confusing as to which train we were meant to take. The signs would be displayed in Japanese for 90% of the time, then quickly switch to English, but not long enough that we could actually read them fully.

Nara lived up to its reputation, it really is full of deer! They mob the sidewalks since there are vendors who sell specially made snacks to tourists. We didn’t feed any cause it looked hectic and scary tbh.

Afterwards, we got a bit lost trying to find Todaji temple, which, made originally in the 7th century (but rebuilt after fires and such), houses a HUGE buddha.

I think the exterior of Buddha is supposed to be entirely metallic. We gave a little donation so we could light small candles in the temple.

Then we went to a museum with a lot of awesome artifacts found around the temple grounds, such as scabbards and really impressive sculptures. One larger-than life sculpture was of a 40-armed deity!

Afterwards, we went back to Osaka and met up with Nick. For dinner, the others went to an Omakase, which we knew has no vegetarian options. I opted to go to a cute little vegetarian cafe that seemed to be home converted to a restaurant. I had stir fried udon!

I decided to explore a nearby music store, and look who I ran into on the way there!

I was interested to see if the music store had wooden flutes, but they didn’t really have non-western instruments. They did have a lot of ocarinas though!

Afterwards, we met up in Dotonbori, which is really fun at night!

We went to a Round One (huge arcade chain), and what an experience that was. At first we noticed godlike people playing rhythm games. They even brought their own equipment like gloves! Some were playing in their formal work clothing, others were dressed specifically for a workout.

We mere mortals played a few games of DDR, thankfully without anyone else around. I had never really played but I was surprisingly the best among us four. It was really fun but definitely works up a sweat.

There was also Mario Kart!

We went a few floors up and played some more darts. Again, dumb luck helped me win one of the games of 301 (but horrible lost the rest of the games).

Wednesday, July 3rd

I finished reading Red Dwarf this morning. What a treat it was! I’d recommend it to anyone remotely interested in science-fiction and looking for some good laughs.

We started our day with a visit to Osaka castle, which was amazingly tall and beautiful! Definitely more impressive on the outside than the Edo Palace/Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

We went up the 8-or-so floors, each of which has a small exhibit to explore. A lot of the exhibits were centered around this one huge tapestry that depicted a famous battle for Osaka (The Summer battle?). The art depicts a lot of civilian casualties and misfortune.

The view from the very top was splendid as well!

We split off for lunch near the Osaka Aquarium, and unfortunately I had no cash so the only card-accepting place I found was a 7-11. I had a sad lunch indeed. I met up with Amelia and Forest and a Tomkatsu place, but somehow I got there even before they received their food! So I got to watch people eat after having a sad lunch myself, hooray.

The aquarium was spectacular! The fun started just outside:

It was quite packed, but for good reason. The first set of exhibits were a mixture of land and water, e.g. some fish in the water and a cute animal on land. They had a cute capybara napping, and even seals and dolphins swimming around (in different tanks). Here are some random animals we met

There was one HUGE tank with super large fish like whale sharks. There were lots of viewing points all around the tank on different levels. Nick kept overhearing tourists saying in Chinese how tasty the fish looked, and how many people they would need to eat some of the larger ones. Kinda weird to say that in an aquarium!

Forest and Nick kept calling the sunfish “half-fish” (looks like half of it is missing), poor little guy

There were some reaaaaally plump seals!

This ellipsoid was sitting there eating ice and barking away:

Near the exit, they had a little are where we could pet small sharks and rays! I’d highly recommend the aquarium, it was overall a lot of fun.

We went to Dotonbori in the evening, heading back to Round One. Forest challenged me to some one on one DDR, and we kept doing harder and harder songs until we both completely failed (the game cut us off and gave su the E rating). Near us, there was a dude doing a super hard level (where you control two sets of 4 buttons by yourself) in a nice work outfit, with his friend behind him fanning him and shouting encouragement. GOALS right there. Afterwards, we got some ramen. Interestingly you pay at the vending machine outside to get a ticket, then go inside and present your ticket.

We then went to a video game bar so Forest and I could get our fix of smash and mario kart, but they only had an N64 so it was certainly an interesting experience. It’s been a long time since I’ve played the first smash game. We followed it up with a visit to a darts bar, where I had no lucky break this time around. We called it a night and started packing for our flight out to Bangkok tomorrow morning!