I decided to combine both of our days in Osaka in one post, mostly because I'm lazy and also because we've been crazy busy. My main hope for Osaka was that I would be able to eat some really great food, and I haven't been disappointed at all.
Homework on the train, bummer.
We took the shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka. It's a bullet train, so it was really fast and cool. It actually made me feel a but queasy at the beginning, but once I was used to it I really liked it. We passed by some amazingly beautiful countryside, and since it's fall we were able to see a lot of nice foliage too.
Our hotel is pretty funny here; we're staying at a business hotel, so there are a lot of salarymen staying here. My favorite thing is when they're all walking around in their robes in the morning. There's a communal bath downstairs, and you can hear them laughing and talking down the hall.
Osaka is like night and day compared to Tokyo. The pretty clean streets have been replaced with a bit more grime and trash, and the people dressed to the nines are not really to be found here. It's more of a working class, blue collar kind of neighborhood. The great thing about Osaka is that when they do get off of work, they know how to relax! Everywhere you look are places to eat, pachinko parlors, even "pleasure clubs" (you can guess what those are).
Scott found a beer vending machine
The main reason we came here (like I said before) is for the food, and specifically to experience "kuidaore." It translates roughly to "to ruin one's self with food," and I wanted to do just that. The main area for kuidaore is called Dotonbori, a hive of food stalls, arcades, and bars. We found that there's an area right near where we're staying that is a smaller, seedier version of Dotomburi called Shinsekai. I was still set on heading there for my kuidaore experience though.
Our first night, we walked a long, long way to find an ATM that accepted American cards so we could get cash out, then split up for dinner. Lindsey and Troy went to an Italian place at a mall, and Scott, Aiden and I headed down to Shinsekai for a tasty dinner of kushiage and yakitori. I keep meaning to take pictures of all this amazing food, but I get so excited about eating it I forget.
The next morning we decided to make a trip to the aquarium so that Aiden could have a special day. I loved the layout of the aquarium. We started at he top and worked our way in a circle through the building; that way we got to see each tank top to bottom. The stars of the aquarium are the whale sharks, which were huge and beautiful.
Again, I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures now so everyone can see all the neat things we saw: jellyfish, sea otters, the whale sharks, sunfish, etc:
We decided to kuidaore that night, and headed to Dotumburi to get down. After Shinsekai, however, Dotunburi seemed too commercialized. I had the grilled carb legs at Kani Doraku that I had been so looking forward to, and then we decided to head back to Shinsekai for our full out kuidaore experience.
Back in Shinsekai, we bounced from place to place, ordering food and rounds of drinks. I definitely feel like I accomplished all my kuidaore dreams. We also started going to arcades in between, and things were getting a little silly by night's end.
There, I hope those million pics I just put up make for a lack of posts (sorry Mom!). The most important thing to remember about the whole thing is for relaxing times, make it Suntory time.
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