Osaka - Japan's second city. Home to the Hanshin Tigers, octopus balls and the second best castle I visited on my holiday. After a morning at Osaka Jo, I spent the afternoon watching the mighty Cerezo Osaka defeat Shonan Bellmare. It was a pity so few Osakans bothered to join me.

On Saturday we went to Osaka, another very large city in Japan and one of the largest cities in the world as well. We started the day at Osakajo, which is a huge castle. The Chrysanthemum Festival was underway, so we got to see koto, flute, and taiko drum performances in front of the castle. We also went inside, all the way to the top for a grea...

Today was Keiko's birthday. Having spent all of Saturday sunning ourselves at the beach we decided to have a lower key day today. Keiko opted for renting some DVDs at home and attempting to cook an Indian curry together. Even though we were already reduced to using packet stuff, it was still a mission to get all the ingredients together. The end...

Nothing too interesting too report today. I just thought that you might like to see some photos of Keiko that I took while we were having dinner tonight. We went to a rice bowl chain called 'Matsuya'. It's a fast food restaurant where you can get a bowl of rice with a serving of meat on it, a bowl of miso soup and a salad for about two pounds fo...