All Nippon Airways Gate Tower Hotel Osaka

... a few Avril Lavigne classics and did pretty damn well! It turned into quite a big night and we slowly formed a big group of boat friends including Jon, Richard, an American called Mike, an english guy called Alekz and an english couple, Russel and Nicky.<br><br>The next day was pretty hideous for me - my hangover slowly turned into seasickness and it just got worse the later it got. boooooo. What did lift my spirits though was later that night when we finally reached ...

... early...the banks were still closed. So 1 more Mac-Coffee and we took a taxi. Downstairs and 1000 taxi´s in and out the taxi stand. Hup Hup and we got one who " Thank God....did n´t speak English either"!! But I was prepared with a original map from the Ferry company and showed him who how what and " You know?? "<br><br>He looked at the map....he looked twice and said.."" No Ploblem"" I Know I Know...!!! Well you guessed it...he first had to drive threw ...

... at Steak Ron, delicious Sakuyaki at Hariju and more helpings of takoyaki/okonomuyaki/yakisoba.<br><br>S teak Ron<br>1-10-2 Sonezaki Shinchi, Kita-ku | Umeda, Osaka<br><br>Hariju<br>1-9-26 Nishishinsaibashi Chuo-ku Osaka<br><br>Takontetsu (Pizza Ball House)<br>1-9-20 Maru Bldg Umeda 1 Chome <br>

... connecting icons from the 16th century with current day icons of the internet, at least that was the gist of it as a far as I understood. She was an "earthy" type, into Burning Man and such. We talked about Rainbow gatherings and WWOOFing (working on a farm for board and food), and other hippy-type stuff:)<br><br>Toshi was way cool. We got along right off. Having lived in Germany, he spoke English with a German accent which kinda distinguished him. He ...

... pointed it precisely, depressed the button, and swiftly make my way back to our waiting tea ceremony...<br><br>[CLICK, CLICK, CLICK...] We posed, and toasted, and enjoyed:)<br><br>We finished our tea off with the complimentary sweets left for us - kind of a Fig Newton, but with a sweet bean center. Very tasty:)<br><br>----<br>DINNER:<br><br>A fter a short nap for Michele and a little blogging for SwaME, we donned our yukatas (summer kimono "robe"), slid into our slippers, and solemnly ...

... that didn't have hand soap and/or hand-towels... man, that was frustrating. Thank goodness for hand sanitizer! Also, sometimes the bathrooms lacked toilet paper... seriously! And I was NOT a fan of the traditional Japanese toilets where there's basically a hole in the floor and you have to squat. Why on earth do they continue to have these in bathrooms that also have the super high-tech versions... do people actually prefer this method? They must have some ...

... Shin-Osaka Hotel, who would've thunk that there were two of them. The clerk gave us a map and circled where we wanted to be. Following the map we made our way to the Shin-Osaka station and wound up taking another taxi from there. On an interesting note, both the meters read 660 yen but didn't change on the trip. We dropped our bags at the hotel since we were far too early to check in. They gave us umberellas and we walked to the Shin-Osaka station and screwed around ...

... in Japanese and psycho means wonderful. So.... in Japan I am a wonderful psycho who needs an OK dye job! This joke went on and on as our journey continued. The next couple of days were spent walking around checking out the shops, (prices for food here in Japan have gone way up) and looking for creepy bugs for Manito. Little boys all over the world are in to shiny, creepy, ugly bugs and the odd frog. Manito is right in... with his brother Takito and cousin Sota watching from ...

DAY 2: The flight from Manila to Tokyo (my first international) went on smoothly. Upon landing at the Kansai International Airport, we took an hour's ride to the JICA Osaka International Center which would be our home for the next three days. Arriving really late and tired (I left Baguio at 3:00 AM!), we were still asked to gather for an orientation and receive our ...

... style bath, and have your own little bed with a TV, radio, lamp, desk, and alarm clock. The TV was pretty funny - 6 channels on the thing and the only one with good reception was the porn channel. I was pushing buttons in the dark at 3 am and was appalled that the wall next to my pillow was squealing rhythmically (Japanese porn stars squeal, rather than grunt). I looked up to see that i"d flipped the TV on and that there was some poor porn star, looking ...