Sep. 21st, 2007 10:02 am
Osaka Day 1
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chezmaxThis refers to Thursday...
We woke up at the crack of stupid.. about 6 am...
We got up and showered and hung around and had breakfast (peanut butter on toast, refreshingly normal though the bread was a little weird, but not bad)... and then headed out to... Starbucks in the slightly more central part of the city.
We arrived, and the menu was in bilingual Japanese and English. I ordered a "tall iced caramel machiatto". She nodded and spouted something back at me. I nodded and gave her money. I said Arigato Gozaimasu cause that's what people do here. The drink was tasty.
We wandered around for a bit in arcade-style "malls", and ended up at a store called BIC Camera, which is a camera store, in the same way that London Drugs is a drug store. It's 7 floors, and has electronics, and household appliances, and stereos, and high end speakers and receivers (some with vacuum tubes!) and toilets, and fabric, and ... well.. everything. On the 8th floor was a 100 yen store (ie, a dollar store) where I took a picture of some Engrish gift bags, and even stranger is that French is becoming the new Engrish. I got some pictures of that.
On the 9th floor, was a "Big and Tall store", clearly directed at huge American men... the stuff there wouldn't fit me... But it was a treasure trove (of unfortunately overly expensive) Engrish shirts. There was one that looked like a Engrish Loreena McKennit poem/song.
From there, we went to a conveyor sushi restaurant, and had very tasty sushi, for about a $1 per plate. I had quite a bit, and it cost like, $7. Totally awesome.
Then we headed out to the first shrine of the trip, Sumiyoshi Taisha, which is apparently a shinto shrine, actually built before the Chinese influenced shrine architecture. It was quite large, and quite pretty, and there was a kitty wandering about, and I stepped into an area with trees, and got bit by like eleventy thousand mosquitos. (my legs are itchy!). Took lots of pictures. Nearby was a rather pretty park... Parkland seems to be rather rare here in Osaka.
Oh, incidentally, Japan is hot. 34C yesterday, but the humidity was relatively low.
Next up, we headed to the Umeda area of the city, and went up the Umeda Sky Building which was quite the trip. You go up in a glass elevator, which is glass on all four sides. Which is really rather trippy, and moderately terrifying. You can then go on the roof, which is rather pretty, and see Osaka. It's very huge and dense. The only thing moderately similar to this view is seeing Manhattan from the Empire State Building, but it's totally not the same... We stayed up there and watched the sunset from the 39th floor cafe while sipping Coke and eating Cake.... Very pretty. We then went back up, and looked at the city at night. It wasn't particularly busy, and unlike back home, security was pretty much nonexistent, and a lot less tourist kitsch.
Then, deciding we shouldn't overload me with Japanese food all at once, we went for... Mexican.
It was very tasty, and we were serenaded by a Japanese man singing such classics as "Brown Eyed Girl", "Tears In Heaven", and "Your Song". The strange juxtaposition of Mexican food, 70s American Songs, and Japanese people nearly blew my brain. At about 9 pm, I started crashing hard, so we high tailed it back to Meg's, and crawled into bed at around 10. I woke up at 4, and putzed around on her laptop, attempting to catch up on LJ... then went back to bed around 6, and got up at 9 am again.
Quite a day. Very fun. But they can't all be like that or I'm going to be seriously burnt out.
I took LOTS AND LOTS of pictures, but don't have a convenient way to upload them now. Meg has sketchy-ass internet. :)
We woke up at the crack of stupid.. about 6 am...
We got up and showered and hung around and had breakfast (peanut butter on toast, refreshingly normal though the bread was a little weird, but not bad)... and then headed out to... Starbucks in the slightly more central part of the city.
We arrived, and the menu was in bilingual Japanese and English. I ordered a "tall iced caramel machiatto". She nodded and spouted something back at me. I nodded and gave her money. I said Arigato Gozaimasu cause that's what people do here. The drink was tasty.
We wandered around for a bit in arcade-style "malls", and ended up at a store called BIC Camera, which is a camera store, in the same way that London Drugs is a drug store. It's 7 floors, and has electronics, and household appliances, and stereos, and high end speakers and receivers (some with vacuum tubes!) and toilets, and fabric, and ... well.. everything. On the 8th floor was a 100 yen store (ie, a dollar store) where I took a picture of some Engrish gift bags, and even stranger is that French is becoming the new Engrish. I got some pictures of that.
On the 9th floor, was a "Big and Tall store", clearly directed at huge American men... the stuff there wouldn't fit me... But it was a treasure trove (of unfortunately overly expensive) Engrish shirts. There was one that looked like a Engrish Loreena McKennit poem/song.
From there, we went to a conveyor sushi restaurant, and had very tasty sushi, for about a $1 per plate. I had quite a bit, and it cost like, $7. Totally awesome.
Then we headed out to the first shrine of the trip, Sumiyoshi Taisha, which is apparently a shinto shrine, actually built before the Chinese influenced shrine architecture. It was quite large, and quite pretty, and there was a kitty wandering about, and I stepped into an area with trees, and got bit by like eleventy thousand mosquitos. (my legs are itchy!). Took lots of pictures. Nearby was a rather pretty park... Parkland seems to be rather rare here in Osaka.
Oh, incidentally, Japan is hot. 34C yesterday, but the humidity was relatively low.
Next up, we headed to the Umeda area of the city, and went up the Umeda Sky Building which was quite the trip. You go up in a glass elevator, which is glass on all four sides. Which is really rather trippy, and moderately terrifying. You can then go on the roof, which is rather pretty, and see Osaka. It's very huge and dense. The only thing moderately similar to this view is seeing Manhattan from the Empire State Building, but it's totally not the same... We stayed up there and watched the sunset from the 39th floor cafe while sipping Coke and eating Cake.... Very pretty. We then went back up, and looked at the city at night. It wasn't particularly busy, and unlike back home, security was pretty much nonexistent, and a lot less tourist kitsch.
Then, deciding we shouldn't overload me with Japanese food all at once, we went for... Mexican.
It was very tasty, and we were serenaded by a Japanese man singing such classics as "Brown Eyed Girl", "Tears In Heaven", and "Your Song". The strange juxtaposition of Mexican food, 70s American Songs, and Japanese people nearly blew my brain. At about 9 pm, I started crashing hard, so we high tailed it back to Meg's, and crawled into bed at around 10. I woke up at 4, and putzed around on her laptop, attempting to catch up on LJ... then went back to bed around 6, and got up at 9 am again.
Quite a day. Very fun. But they can't all be like that or I'm going to be seriously burnt out.
I took LOTS AND LOTS of pictures, but don't have a convenient way to upload them now. Meg has sketchy-ass internet. :)
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We should totally hang out I'll take you a place to get better priced Engrish (or I'll just send you some if you want later) and souvenir shopping.
I'll be in Iga for Satruday and the mornign of Sunday and Monday is a holiday here so do not try and email me okay, just call. I'll have it on mnners mode when I'm in class though.
Ashley : D
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Also, I thought all of Japan had cheap 100Gb DSL or something?! SHOCKED!
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You make me actually want to go see Japan, even though I couldn't afford it. :P Glad you're havin' fun.
He he he... 'crack of stupid'... LMAO.
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I don't have access to one even if I did want to watch it :)
Her cable is down for some reason or another, so I'm operating on stolen wireless *grin*
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Also, I hate crowds, and I have this mental image of every city in Japan being packed like a sardine can...