Hotel Yotsubashi Osaka

Komealla aamu-oopperalla pärähti tämä päivä käyntiin, koska onnistuin vahingossa unissani jysäyttämään sängyn päässä olevan radion täysillä päälle. Meinasi tulla aamu sydänkohtaus samaa kyytiä!

Nyt kun ehdin jo valittaa, että ei nähty ketään Tokion frendejä tällä kertaa, niin eilen tuli sitten sähköpostia ystävältämme Marilta, että hän on juuri tullut Australiasta kotiinsa käymään ja voitaisiin nähdä sunnuntaina? Koska meillä nämä junapassit kerran on, niin mik ...

Pääosin matkustuspäivä oli tämä keskiviikko, mutta ehdittiin sentään jotain muutakin.

Ja huhhuijaa! Eilinen kiipeily teki näköjään tehtävänsä ja melkoinen työ oli saada itsensä revittyä sängystä ylös. Lihakset aivan jumissa! :-)

Lähdettiin kuitenkin reporankana laahustamaan hotellilta kello 09 jälkeen kohti Kagoshiman asemaa ja kello 10 kiidettiin jo junassa kohti Osakaa. Ilma oli tänään hiukan sateinen ja sumuinen, joten ei olisi ollut mikään ...

... of youth culture. Much like Time Square in New York .... lots of lights and lots of shops. There were thousands of people on the streets. Went to a fantastic noodle shop for dinner ... had an udon noodle bowl with a soft boiled egg. Also ate some deep fried noodle snack. It was all delicious.

Stopped at Starbucks again before cathcing the subway home.

Sorry not able to load any pictures today .. will put some up as soon as I can.

... a baby chair? Can we get an elevator? Can we get a sign in English? What, not even in touristy places? No to all of the above

Being a kid in Japan is pretty tuff, you are limited to where you are allowed to go and if you know where you want to go, it's not always easy getting there. And lets say people aren't very becoming when it comes to giving you a hand...Mia and ...

... plague, but turns out, I'm American (who knew?).
Now we're back at the hotel relaxing before heading out to Nara in the morning for the Giant Buddha shrine and a park filled with deer.

Hope the homefront is holding together.
Ben Brewer

P.S. I didn't take my camera today because I didn't want to haul around my camera bag in addition to my shopping bags. There should be tons of frames from tomorrow though!

... to the store to buy an 'omamori' which is a good luck charm. I bought one last year, and I think it ran out of luck on the 31st last year. I also bought another charm because it looked so cute. I bought it not really knowing what it was, but had lots of fun with it. It has two little bells on a stick, with a wooden panel hanging on the top with a big cow and a little cow as 2009 is the year of the ox. I had lots of fun ringing the bells everywhere I went after I bought it. I was even ...

... north of my shoulders was numb anyway. And with that, we ventured back to the hotel. Universal Studios in the morning, which should be an excellent day and a highlight of the trip, provided the weather holds out. The bad news is that we are supposed to be getting a decent amount of rain tomorrow. If we get too much rain, we might put the park off until the last couple of days which we have free, in an attempt to get some better weather.

... it's secluded. We went because there's a shrine where part of the Last Samurai was filmed...:o) It took us a while to walk up, but the view of Himeji on the top was amazing especially as the sun set. On Thurs night, I went to visit my host-family to say farewell as I'm leaving Osaka in a few days. I can't believe it was 8 years ago when I was in high school and they hosted a very home-sick moi. Time really flies, but they haven't changed. They're ...

... beauty. And 2.) despite the mystique, a geisha is only human, just like the rest of us: as we turned to retrace our steps, we watched as a short geisha, who was obviously having trouble walking in her platformed sandals, tripped on a cobblestone and almost fell down face first. Clumsiness strikes across race, religion, creed and class. Reluctant to leave but cognizant of the looming thunderheads, we mounted our bikes and zoomed down the hill, elated with our newfound speed. Pedaling ...

... become the business and industry capitol of the Kansai region. The Tokyo of the South, I suppose. Ellie and I split company with Harry, Wai, and Joe at Shin Osaka en route to the different hotels we'd booked. Finding digs in Osaka had been sort of a last minute thing, at least relative to the stuff in Kyoto, Nara, and Tokyo I'd booked months in advance. It had been my intention to spend the entire week in Kyoto and simply take day trips to Osaka and Nara. Unfortunately ...