Osaka Day 2

We started off the morning by stopping by the local bakery to pick up some breakfast, where we got some fairly tasty danishes and some apple juiceboxes. Then off we went to the train station to start our exploration for the day.

Osaka Castle

 Our first stop was Osaka Castle, an impressively large building, surrounded by even more impressively large stone walls. What was NOT impressive was that everything had basically been built within the last 100 years as a recreation. We didn't bother to go into the castle, because everything we had read suggested that it wasn't worth it.

However, there were a TON of field trip groups at the castle. Like, we couldn't go anywhere and not see a group. All the kids had matching colored hats among each school, and the age ranges were pretty varied. Whenever we passed a group of them, one in the crowd would say "Heeddooo!" and then a bunch of the others would join in, and we'd tell them "Hello!" back. It was pretty cute. The older kids were just in normal uniforms, and didn't pay us much attention. We got an ice cream cone and looked around the castle gift shop as well, before moving on.

Meghan enjoys her ice cream while we covertly take a picture of the Japanese School Girl Outfits

Cute Japanese children on their field trip

 We walked through the rest of the castle grounds, and saw one of the smaller gardens and a shrine, and then headed back towards the train station to go pick up some money at the 7-eleven for the next few days. On the way to the 7-eleven, we stopped in a ramen shop and had CRAZY DELICIOUS ramen. We forgot to take pictures again, but trust that no ramen in the states will ever compare.

We went back to the hostel for a little while before heading back out again. We went to the Umeda Sky Building to check out the Sky Garden observatory. Check out the view from the ground up:

That's a tall building...

Those beam looking things crossing through the circle: escalators (covered, thankfully).

Going up the escalator

And you take a glass elevator up to those. It was pretty crazy. The elevator told you how many meters up you were as you were ascending as well, and the very top floor was 173 meters off the ground. It definitely felt quite high, and the view was amazing, though it was pretty overcast so all of our pictures came out a bit gray and hazy.

The eastern skyline as seen from above

The whole floor below the walkway on the top was basically dedicated to love in a really cheesy way. There was a giant heart to take your picture in. There were little booths to sit and watch the skyline. There was a little room with interactive audiovisual stuff that changed when you sat differently on the benches. There was a place for you to buy an engraved heart-shaped lock with the couple's names that didn't have a key, and you brought it upstairs to lock on the promise fence after making a wish:

Love bench with locks all around it

There were evidently a lot of nice lights that accented the whole place at night, which is evidently when we should have gone. It's supposed to be a great view of the sunset, which is why they market it with such a sappy love orientation.

We also saw a weird building that had a tunnel through the middle of it:

What's going on here?

We got a Coke float which was weird because they made it with softserve and the Coke had ice in it. We sat around in the lounge area for a good long while to recuperate. Our bodies are already starting to rebel with the strain of walking around so much and carrying baggage, so we were exhausted and sore.

Eventually we made our way to Dotonbori, the main food street in Osaka.

You probably recognize a few of the crazy restaurant idols that they have:

We got some Takoyaki (fried balls of dough with octopus in them), an Osaka specialty:

They're covered with a sweet sauce, mayo, some seaweed, and little fish flakes.
A little crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside.

and ate at a kushi-katsu (crispy breaded fried foods on sticks) restaurant that had a very angry man as their mascot telling us not to double dip:

From the front: pork x2, sweet potato, asparagus, and beef x2

Dotonbori is a long a canal that runs through the city:

and it's very near a huge covered shopping arcade called Shin Saibashi-suji:

that runs for a few miles and has a ton of shops including a lot of really high end stores like Gucci, Armani, Swaravski, etc. There was also a giant Hello Kitty store:

which had so much more Hello Kitty merchandise than I was prepared for. I think it had 4 stories (though it wasn't all that deep). They had a Hello Kitty musical playing on some TV screens and they had posters for other Hello Kitty productions:

WHAT?

We had some desserts in a little cafe on the arcade:

Back: Chocolate Banana Tartlette (basically banana and chocolate pudding)
Front: Blueberry Cheesecake (which wasn't as sweet as American Cheesecake)

before meeting Chris again to hang out and play a little pool and darts one more time before we left. He took us to a bar where they know his name and evidently a lot of foreigners come. It was in America-Mura (American-neighborhood) where a lot of Japanese youngsters hang out (I'm not sure about the name).

Chris wore his best suit today... Like a good Japanese Salary-man.

Afterwards, we headed back for the evening and passed out again (hence the next day post again).

We'll be headed out to Koya-san and Nara today and tomorrow. They're both nature areas so we probably won't have any internet access until we get to Kyoto the day after that.

Link to all the Pictures from Today