Osaka Excursion

Yesterday was the day of our planned visit to Osaka! Although it was originally just going to be Carissa, Alistair and I, we were joined by Felicia, Ben and Felicia's host sister Nao. The more the merrier, I say!

So I woke up bright and early at 6AM to start the day. At first I was worried about whether I'd be able to make it to Osaka at all, having never travelled on trains in Kyoto on my own before, let alone out of the prefecture. Thankfully the transport service here is pretty easy to navigate. I left the house at 7:30 and caught a bus from Horikawa-dori to Kyoto station. Once I got to Kyoto station I bought my ticket from the vending machine and, with some help from Carissa's host mother over the phone, chose the right train to get to JR Osaka.

The train ride was dull. I didn't get a seat because it was pretty busy. It took around 40 minutes or so to arrive at the JR station in Osaka, and after that I had to find the exit we planned to meet at. This wasn't so easy, but was eventually managed and I met up with Alistair and soon after, Carissa.

Osaka is fantastic. Even walking out of the train station at 9AM in the morning it was fairly busy and just fantastic. I think it's one of my favourite cities, pushing Tokyo down a bit. We didn't really know what to do at first, but we just felt like it would be good to catch up and talk about what's been going on with us since we hadn't seen each other for a few months. After standing around talking for awhile we did a bit of wandering and came upon one of the more sleazy areas in Osaka by accident (I swear!). It looked less sleazy later in the day with people around, but since every second shop was an adult shop or had signs with suggestively dressed girls on them, it was hard not to think of it as so.

We quickly made our way out of there and onto one of the more main roads and eventually ended up back outside the train station. There was a shopping mall right outside the station which boasted a Starbucks on the 7th floor, so that was our next destination. It didn't open until 11 though and by that time it was only about 10:45. We waited with everyone else at the bottom of the elevators and eventually got up to have some coffee and wake up a bit!

After coffee and a bit of shopping we met up with Felicia, Ben and Nao and with a little convincing from me it was decided to go to karaoke. Karaoke is always great fun, but it's so much better here in Japan. The rooms are unbelievably nicer than the dodgy place I used to visit in Australia. Felicia and Ben escaped about 3 quarters of the way through and didn't come back to pay! We met them afterwards back in sleazeville but forgot to get the money off them haha.

Next up was food, since we were hungry. Osaka is the town of takoyaki so we couldn't not eat it. Nao took us to a nearby stall and we ate and ate. It was probably some of the best takoyaki that I've had so far. Very good. No chocolate though, sadly.

After takoyaki was eaten more shopping was done, we rode the Ferris Wheel at the top of the aforementioned mall, which gave a great view of the city. It was just buildings, buildings and more buildings though. I have a feeling it would have been nicer at night. Ben sat it out since he wasn't fond of the height I guess, and Nao waited with him. We took purikura (:D) next, which I helped expertly decorate haha. This lasted well into the afternoon. We visited countless clothes stores, book stores, CD stores and whatnot. I managed to contain myself and didn't spend too much of what I brought with me though. At about 6ish Nao, Ben and Felicia had to leave so we said goodbye and then Carissa, Alistair and I went off to do some more browsing at Tower Records and then find somewhere to eat dinner.

We eventually found a small restaurant that sold various forms of curry and omlete rice. It looked good, and was pretty cheap so we chose to eat there. Good choice too, it was delicious. I had their 'Kappa Curry', rice with curry, salad, and fried potato goodness. It was fantastic and really filling. I also stole an Orange Juice. Actually, when I went to pay I had the right amount and even gave him the exact amount needed for the meal and drink, but when he reread my order he just said the curry. I corrected him and said, 'With an orange juice too', he even said yes after that but then proceeded to hand me back some of my money and charge me only for the meal! Crazy.

After dinner we went to a crepe store to buy the best desert I have personally ever had. I ordered a Tropical Mango crepe, which was mango, banana, strawberries, whipped cream and custard in a vanilla crepe. It was great and I'm going back there again as soon as I can! After we were full to bursting point we decided to call it a day. Or rather a night, since i was about 8PM by then. We went back to the train station, bought tickets and headed off to our individual trains. I made it home in one piece by 9:30 at night and was suitably exhausted. Luckily I got to sleep in today, since this week is exam week and I wasn't due at school until 9:30. I got to come home at 12:30, too!

Tomorrow I have takoyaki eating scheduled with my University Japanese tutors. This will be the third time I've eaten it in a week. On Friday night I went to Horikawa Matsuri, a tiny festival nearby my hosue, with my host brother Fumiaki and we ate it there too haha. Not that I'm complaining, I could live off that stuff.

Today AU called me about my phone. Basically, I was being charged crap loads for the sending and receiving of emails and also the internet fees, since I wasn't signed up to some form of discount plan they have. I signed up today over the phone and although there's a fee to do so it will apparently save me 70% on my next bill... which was supposedly set to be stellar. The perks of having a phone in a country that has a different language, I guess. Fingers crossed.

There are Osaka photos up in the gallery. Leave a comment too, for the amount of views this page gets I receive very little feedback. It'd be good to know who is reading it...