Osaka - Japan

We were going to just stay in the Kyoto Inn forever but we had already booked another hostel in Osaka so we had to don our ten ton truckloads of turdular stuff and hit the road to Osaka.
When we arrived it was raining. Ho hum. Where is the sun??
Upon checking in we tried to explain to the desk clerk that we had no cash, then he sent Jim on a few wild goose chases down the road in the search for international ATMs. No such thing. Especially on a Sunday afternoon. But he let us in anyway and we headed out into Osaka to explore.

We hit the town with a hungry vengence (we were starving) and tried to find somewhere decent to eat. We were too late for lunch and too early for dinner. But eventually we popped into a groovy Italian type place for lunch. I know people may berate us for eating Italian and foreign food whilst in Japan, but let me tell you this. Japanese people eat rice, pickles, noodles, rice, pickles and noodles. Now sometimes the things that come with these are different – e.g. pork, chicken, shrimp but the basic idea is the same. Now couple this with the miso soup and the slight awkwardy westerner with chopsticks and you can understand why perhaps every few days we indulge in some Italian/Nepalese/Indian/even McDonalds. (Eek)

Afterwards we trumped around taking pictures. The Japanese like to play some crazy ball game that looks like a slot game. They are everywhere. And they are :LOUD. I dunno how anyone can hear anything!! So we rumbledaround town taking pictures and doing some half assed window shopping.

And then the piece de resistance – the Osaka Aquarium – the one with a live whale shark. Well were we excited – were we wha… he he
We paid the hefty fees in and parambled around the place. First we saw gifuckingnormous fish, salamder, otters, Monterey bay sealions and antartic penguins. All these fish & birds had plenty of room as each place was huge. So we felt slightly better than any zoos we had visited. Then we moved onto see the Pacific Ocean Tank. It was 9m deep and some hundred thousand square metres wide but imo it still wasn’t big enough for the whale shark in it. I’m not totally against zoos as I think they have their uses and I also think that they can help in the survival of a species – maybe not a species that can survive in the wild however and that is not good. Seeing the whale shark up close and personal however was absolutely amazing. She was surrounded by many types of sharks, giant manta rays, tuna fish and lots of other fish and she was huge and beautiful. However as amazing as seeing the whale shark was, it was difficult not to notice the damage to her tail fin from constantly rubbing off the edge of the tank as she circled round and round and round and round for years.
After we finished we watched a video about how the aquarium was constructed and they showed us how they captured the whale shark. She was only a baby when captured and it was very sad I thought. Animals that large should never be kept in a space so small no matter how many thousand millions square metres it is. Later on I had a dream that I snorkelled into the pool with a pickaxe and managed to bust a hole through the wall for the whale shark to escape, but then a friend of mine appeared demanding to know why I hadn’t phoned her and the dream went off on other tangents! Wow and these dreams are without the aid of LARIUM (malaria tablets that make Jim & me dream crazy dreams).

For our second day in Osaka – I put James in charge of the day’s activities. I was tired of trying to read all the bumpf and in turn organise a days events. It may be ok when we are in an area for a long while, but here we are only in each place for a couple of days and a certain amount of research and planning has to be done for each venue. Needless to say I am normally left to do it as otherwise we wouldn’t get to see anything.
But on this day after being so frustrated yesterday trying to organise things and get to see things, I said that jimbear was in charge of what we were going to do this day. It was up to him to wake me up (for a change) and make sure we got out to see stuff.
WELL
I got to sleep til 2pm. FANFUCKINGTASTIC!
Jim was way too busy doing laundry to wake me up and I admit I could have slept until teatime. I was delirious the rest of the day. Although I love travelling aboot and seeing and doing so much stuff, it tires the pants off ya. Especially when you have already some flights booked elsewhere afterwards. We have to make sure we see the best bits no matter where we are otherwise we will regret it. However it is so rare and so great to be able to sit on your arse or sleep until 3 or 4 like you would do at home on a Sunday. I’d say since we have been away we have had only 4 days where we have done absolutely nothing. Every other day there is something to do or see. It can be very tiring.
However I wouldn’t swop it for the world. he he

Anywho after the mega snooze we headed back into town for a rumble around. I got my fantastic geta sandals –they are white and straw and I love them – they are worn by some monks and some geisha (but the geisha usually have way bigger heels on theirs). Then I got some funky Japanese lil bowls (for when I have my ultra cool ultra modern ultra swish house – any time in the next forty years)
We decided to go into a thai house that we spotted but boy what a waste of money. Although the food was ok, the portions were tinchy and the beer was so small for bloody 5 dollars 25 cent. Ripppppp
After this we were too pooped so we invested in some reeeediculously gorgeous hot banana and chocolate croissants – oh my god. They were so yum. We stocked up on some for the trip up to Paul tomorrow . J later we indulged in mucho low calorie grape flavoured stuff (for me as I’ve got pleasantly plump of late) and some Sapporo beer for Jimbob.