Osaka

Ok, here I go with another mammoth post, about another fun weekend away. On Friday night I caught the Shink with Kat, and headed off for Osaka! Kat and I truly started the weekend in style, by drinking beer, eating Maccy Ds, and playing games, in spite of being placed in the 'silent' car!!! After meeting Louise at Shin-Osaka, we went off in search of our little hostel 'Sumo Backpackers'. It did take us a little while to find it, and a few minutes of walking round in circles, but eventually we spotted it, and dumped our bags in our new home for the next three days. We decided to go and explore the area near our hostel. Umeda was bright, exciting and noisy...everything we were looking for on our first night in the big city! Kat was successful in her attempts to win a cool teddy from one of the UFO machines ; a drunk business man tried to strike up a conversation with us, and then just apolgised, and stumbled away ; we saw dodgy bars, dodgy people, and dodgy clothes ; we looked around us in awe at the neon, the size of the buildings, the amount of people ; and we finally decided to end our evening at a karaoke place which seemed to have 'dragons' as its decor theme! Karaoke, as always, was fun, and with classics such as Take That, and Stevie Wonder, accompanied by karage (fried chicken) and the saltiest chips in the world, it was a good ending to our Osaka beginning.

On Saturday, Selena arrived at the hostel, and then the four of us set out for a morning of exploring. First stop was Den Den Town (basically an area with loads of electrical-type shops), which was cool to look around for a bit, but as I had nothing I wanted to buy there (no electrical bargains to haggle for!), it did not keep my interest for very long. After looking for another 'Lonely Planet recommended area' in the vicinity, and failing terribly by walking in completely the wrong direction, we cut our losses and headed for Amerika-Mura. After a brief stop in the almighty 'Loft', refreshments in Starbucks, and browse around a Hello Kitty shop (whooohooo!), we found Amerika-Mura. This is the area of South Osaka which has lots of shops selling American-style clothes, accessories, stuff (!), in order for young 'hip' Japanese kids to look like the American kids they see in the movies! It was actually a cool area to wander around, for people-watching if nothing else. I really wanted an American greasy burger for lunch, and so tried to find a diner-type-place. We couldn't find one though, and settled for a very pleasant Italian cafe, where I had pizza, and where I learnt that celery and broccoli should not be a topping on pizza! Back at the hostel later in the afternoon, we met up with Ellen, and planned our evening. The 5 of us (& Maya, a girl who was staying in our hostel, and was travelling alone, so we invited her along, set off for the Umeda Sky Building. When we finally found it (we were given confusing directions!), I was very excited, and looking forward to getting a great night-time view over Osaka. The building (well, the tower), is huge! You go up it in a glass elevator, and so can see all of Osaka around you, and then do the final stage on a long, long escalator, which again is surrounded by glass, providing you with impressive views, and a slight feeling of vertigo! It was great, and the view from the top was spectacular (Dan, Rosie and Alex, it was just like being back up Seoul Tower again!). I took some great photos, and enjoyed staring our at the neon and sparkle of Osaka city spread out before me. After the long ride back down, we hunted for a restaurant in the basement of the building, as we were all starving! We decided on a cute okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage&otherstuff pancake) restaurant. My first okonomiyaki experience was not great, so I was hoping this would redeem the old cabbage pancake! And yep, it did! It was really nice, and although I preferred the yakisoba that we also had, I would definitely have it again. What really made the whole dining experience though was the kindness and humour of the guy who appeared to the run the place. He jokingly asked Kat for I.D when she ordered a beer, he did not put those awful fish-flakes in our pancake, he took photos of our whole group for us, and then happily posed for photos with his staff, as we snapped away! We were the last customers to leave, and before we went, he let us all keep our metal spatulas that we had been using to cut and scoop up the okonomiyaki!! He even cleaned them off for us! He was such a sweety, and a great example of the generosity and friendliness of Japanese people. We headed back to the hostel, feeling stuffed, tired, but happy.