Osaka

Well, we arrived in Japan after another super long flight from Los Angeles.  By the time we left LA and then we stepped into our hotel room in Osaka, it was a short 21 hour trip! It was 9pm in Japan on Wednesday May 1 and 5am Tuesday April 30 in our heads! Dealing with the jet lag has been a bit intense.  

Needless to say, we woke up the following morning quite early.  I have to take a moment to mention the hotel.  It has a natural hotspring spa facility in the basement level which is included in the cost of the room.  People who do not do their research about Japanese hotels may be surprised that there are two types of double beds.  One is a normal- North American size, and the other is about 33% smaller.  These rooms tend to be less expensive but if you are willing to sleep in tight quarters, it is well worth it.  I recommend the Super Hotel Natural Hot Springs Hotel in Osaka.  Very, very nice!

Ok, observations about Japan:  It really is true that everything seems cartoonish.... Even the evening news is full of icons and funny sound effects and pink, pink, pink graphics!  I was led to believe that no one spoke English so have been pleasantly surprised that many Japanese do.  It may be slow and awkward, with a lot of pointing and hand gesturing, but the Japanese people are SO polite and willing to please it is a great pleasure to be here.  Both Cassio and I are very, very happy with the country.

The first thing we noticed about the city is that it is SUPER quiet.  I mean, you see individuals walking to work but you hear NO SOUND! No yelling, no cars honking, no banging... it was eerie! People are very respectful and go about their business.  

We left the hotel around 7:30 am and started walking toward the Osaka Castle, which is the one major historic site in the city.  It is in a massive walled enclosure and has two series of walls.  The building on the outside is much more impressive than the inside, which has been renovated to accommodate a large number of tourists and operates like a museum inside.  Nonetheless, the 600 yen (about 6 bucks) is worth it for the view from the top of the city below:  These first few pics are all of the Castle and the grounds surrounding it.

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The school kids are super cute.  Each school has their own coloured hats so you see groups of red or white or yellow little heads.  The children are adorable and have been trying to catch our eyes or sometimes, just run up behind us and say in happy voices, "Hello!  Hello!"  to engage with the "English".  Aside from seeing several white, indian and black people at the Castle, in the other part of the city, we have encountered virtually only Japanese people.  I believe this will be different in Tokyo, but Osaka, so far, does not suffer from a gluttony of tourists.  It is Japan all the way!

Love these things! The real food sometimes looks just this shiny!

These are plastic versions of what you can order.  Otherwise how could you fight gravity and keep the noodles from sliding off of the plate!

Here is Osaka's "Times Square" situated by a river and with a pretty bridge.  This is where all the people have been hiding!

The covered "indoor/outdoor" mall goes on for ages.... I don't know how many kilometers....

While it is true that everywhere you find vending machines, contrary to popular myth, instead of finding used girl's panties (gross, right?) as I had read to expect, all you see on practically every street corner is drink vending machines.  Thank God the Japanese drink coffee!  I thought I was going to come here and be searching high and low for my morning caffeine fix.  Not so!  Everywhere you can find a huge variety of both hot and cold coffee drinks .... and very tasty too!  Only 100 yen in most places, a quick pick-me-up is literally steps away!  Of course, for those who don't like coffee, there are plenty of other choices.  Some labels have English writing on them, others, none at all, so it can be a complete surprize... Yesterday, for lunch, we bought a liter of something liquid to drink with pretty much no knowledge of what it would be.  It turned out to be unsweetened, cold green tea, which I was quite happy with, while Cassio drank it only for hydration...hoping that soon the bottle would be empty and we could then use it to fill with our "FIT" juice powder brought from Brazil.

Very clever indeed, these Japanese... Everywhere you look there are examples of good design and efficient use of space.  This photo above shows the highway running above and through the centre of town.  They also have put pylons into the river bed and have run highways OVER the river, thereby using the space the river takes up, to allow for more traffic.