Hotel Hanshin Osaka

... ettei! Käydään vetämässä pienet Karaokesessiot Tokiossa ja tullaan sitten viimeisellä luotijunalla tuhannen örvelöissä takaisin Osakaan. :-) Toimii!

Suunnattiin siis ensimmäiseksi aamulla Shin-Osakan aseman lipputiskille varaamaan sunnuntaiksi meno-paluulippuja Tokioon. Hiukan nosti kylmää hikeä, että miten tästä varaushommasta Japaniksi oikein selviän, mutta ihan mainiosti meni. No problemos. Tai silleen oli kyllä problemos, että olin ihan sulaa vahaa taas n ...

... 8221;. Ja nyt kun juna tuossa kiisi ohi vihreänä siintävien peltojen, niin siellähän se aamukaste ja sumu leijui! Ei ollut mitään pötypuhetta näköjään se teksti! Olisi aika hienoa jos pystyisi pelkästään maistamalla tunnistamaan eri alueiden teet. Ehkä juuri ja juuri nyt pystyn tunnistamaan Senchan, Gyokuron, Machan ja Genmaichan toisistaan. Niin ja Kiinalaisen teen taas erottaa siitä, että se loistaa pimeässä tai pakenee kun koitat juoda sitä. Fosfori ja ...

Today we spent the morning to touring around Kyoto before catching our train back to Tokyo. We stopped to visit the Nijo Castle which was originally bulit in 1603 as the official home of the first Tokugawa Shogun. Although it didn't have the beautiful gardens like the temples it was still a very interesting place. It even had a moat like European castles. We then went to see the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go ...

... countries simply sharing their sympathy with the people of Nagasaki. It was a very emotional morning for all of us, visiting the hypocenter, learning about the bombing at the museum, and then moving on to the peace park. After spending our entire morning at the A-bomb memorials, we only had time for lunch before catching our train back to Kobe. So we stopped by a restaurant recommended by our hostel to try the champon (the delicious local delicacy, a seafood soup of sorts ...

... por la izquierda como en el Reino Unido.

Moviles

Todo el mundo lleva un telefono movil similar (rectangular, bastante fino), pero los i-phones no se ven. Estos moviles estan bien equipados con juegos, camara de fotos y traductores de idiomas. Y por supuesto, con los simbolos japoneses. Se utilizan tambien para viajar en el metro: en lugar del tradicional ticket o abono, se pasa el telefono por el scanner de la maquina de entrada para entrar.

Osaka, Kinki, Japan cagonu

... that Tokyo's Narita airport was a 90-min train ride from the center of town, but who cares - this city rocks! The hostel rocked! The cool foreigners I met rocked! There are so many things to see and do: Ueno (like "bueno" for my Texas friends!), Asakusa, Roppongi (from what I remember - more ha!), Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, Shimbashi and others. I could definitely live in this city. Alain and I scoured most of it with my bum toe all bound up. I ...

... you (without your prior knowledge that it was coming), you very quickly come to terms with how quick these trains are. Once my heart had started beating again, after I realised that it was just a train, and not a bomb going off, I was in absolute awe of how fast the thing was going. I literally could not focus on any part of the train, as the whole thing went past in a blur. Then the swearing started. I'm glad I was by myself and ...

... ueber 1000 Jahre), leider die Gebaeude nicht. Osaka ist heute eine moderne Grossstadt, 11 Millionen Menschen leben hier im Einzugsgebiet und man merkt es, es gibt deutlich mehr Menschen. Die hoechsten Gebaeude sind allerdings nur knapp 100m hoch (ein Riesenrad, welches kurze Zeit mal das hoechste der Erde war und ein futuristisches neues Gebaeude kann man beide fuer Views nutzen). Habe mir auch noch das ...

... the world (it had the folded over top fin that most captive killer whales seem to have). The tank the whale shark was in was certainly huge by aquarium standards, but the whale shark could only swim in one direction for about 15 seconds before having to turn round and swim back again. There was also a poor sun fish (a huge fish which looks like it has been put together wrongly) which was in a tank sectioned off with nets so it had only a couple of metres in which to swim. Seeing ...

... anything is pretty lonely. Hopefully the roommates will be cool. I decide to just hang out locally and rest and de-jetlag myself. The third day: Roommate #1 - Thank you!! The roommate, Craig from Chicago, seems really cool. We decide to go explore the neighborhood a bit. I swear all the streets here are practically malls. Every street seems to run into a huge semi-outdoor strip of fruit markets, restaurants, convenience-like stores, etc ...