Osaka

In November, Tristan came to Japan to visit me! That was so much fun! I was so happy to see him. He was here from November 5 - 26th. The first weekend he stayed in town with me and met my friends. The second weekend we headed out to Osaka! That was so much fun! I really liked Osaka. Although, I suppose we were only there for 3 nights and 2 days. We headed out on Wednesday night after I got off of work. We arrived at our hotel that was located in an area "not suitable for children". 

Left: Right by our hotel. I guess that's why it's not a suitable area for children.Right: This was the sign for our hotel. 500 yen for 30 minutes

Unbeknownst to us, we had booked a love hotel! Well, maybe we should have put two and two together - the "not suitable for children" warning and the name of the hotel - Kinki Hotel! But I must say, I've had my best sleeps at love hotels because they are so sound proof and light proof!

On Thursday, we headed out to Universal Studios Japan (yeah, we were REALLY doing the Japanese thing here!). We figured there wouldn't be many children around. It was great - we waited in lines from 5 - 40 minutes, never longer than that! There were junior high and high school students at USJ because the Japanese have absolutely WONDERFUL school field trips. Usually during the spring, they would go on a big field trip. One of my schools went to Kyoto, Osaka and another city for their three day field trip! wow! Makes a field trip to the Aquarium at Stanley Park seem so trivial! I hope I can go on a field trip with the students this year! My BIGGEST surprise was that EVERYTHING at Universal was in Japanese. I suppose that since I have been to Universal Studios in California about 4 times, I never dreamt it would be in another language. I guess I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer at times.

Left: Me with Betty! They also had Marilyn Monroe!  Right: Fake set behind me. Looks kinda neat!

Left: Trist was unamused. It was the Jurassic Park Ride. We got SOAKED!  Right: Entrance to USJ - Christmas themed!

We did the cultural thing on Friday. We woke up late and went to Osaka Castle. Afterwards we walked around and saw a kind of big tower - nothing compared to the Eiffel. I wanted to walk through one of the gardens, but Trist wasn't into paying 150 yen to go see a garden, so we walked outside of it. I'm so glad we did because we found out where some of the homeless people were living. In Kanazawa, we don't see many homeless people for some reason. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right areas, but I really don't see any.

Osaka Castle - inside, it's just a big museum about the history of the castle & ties it in with the history of Japan.

The homeless set up camp by the garden. Some had small generators and air conditioners, stoves, and other appliances.

In our guide, it said to check out the festival gate where there was an amusement park. Well, we got there and the "amusement" mall was deader than a doornail. There was this big roller coaster looping around this amusement mall. We paid our 700 yen ($7.75) and we were the only two people on the ride - we got the front seats. We were whipped through the air and were REALLY high up because the ride started on the top floor of the building. I hate heights.

The roller coaster ride. 3 people employed, no customers except for me and Trist! Crazy!    The ferris wheel was on top of a shopping mall!

Friday night was a blast because we met up with Tara and Paul - two ALTs living in the Osaka area who met up with us for drinks. They took us to a REALLY cool place. We sat around and chatted. It was so nice to see them again! I met them in Vancouver in the Japanese cram course at SFU. Tristan really enjoyed that night of just chilling out and drinking. I definitely want to go back to Osaka!

These pictures were taken in the Dontobori area.. Absolutely crazy busy with TONS of neon! I loved it there!

We left on Saturday after checking out because I had to work on Sunday. We had our third subway breakfast meal in a row and headed back to the train station to get back to Kanazawa.

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