I'm so good, I'm so good, I'm so utterly good~~~~~~~~~~!

So I had quite the exciting and full weekend for the most part. It was fun!! We didn't have school on Monday either, which made it even better. It was Respect for the Age day, or something like that. Not really sure. But anyway, I will probably split it up into two entries because both days that I went and did something were quite long!!

So anyway, Friday night... not a whole lot of new things going on. Though apparently, Otosan came back that night! He must have come back very late. Okasan waited up for him, but both Mai-san and I went to bed. I got to meet him in the morning though. He was very nice! He's a company employee... I believe. Apparently, he works strange hours and goes on a lot of trips though. I still don't know what his schedule is like. Sometimes he's there and sometimes he's not!!
But anyway, after meeting him, I went to campus to meet up with Ellen and Dave because we were walking to Hirakata Station to meet up with everyone else. And from there, we were going to Osaka! We had a small confusion where Casey and Vicki thought we were meeting by the barriers to the train, but Dave was sure someone had told him by this store called Kiddy Land, so we didn't all find each other for a little while, but I took this opportunity to ogle the mass amounts of capsule machines that were scattered around the outside of Kiddy Land (and subsequently, also took this opportunity to get this really adorable Super Mario Galaxy one - I got Bee Mario with a Black Luma - it's so CUTE!). But anyway, after that, we were on our way. We had to take a train to Kyobashi, and from there, we decided to just walk to Osaka Jo (Osaka Castle). I didn't even know we were going to the castle, so I go really excited.

On the way there, I had fun looking around Osaka, because it's a much bigger city than Hirakata, obviously. You could also tell it was a bit more westernized just by looking around at how things were arranged. For one, the streets were a lot bigger and more spacious. But anyway, we crossed a number of bridges and were finally to the outskirts of Osaka Jo. It was so beautiful! I must say, this is the first castle I've ever actually seen, so it was pretty dang awesome. Walking up to it there were these ginormous stone walls and little gardens. I felt like I was in a Zelda game or something, traveling up to meet Ganon, AHAHA. But it took a little while to get all the way up (oh, and did I mention that it was really hot that day?). We finally made it though, so we went inside and went all the way to the top, where we got to look out off the observation deck towards an amazing view of Osaka City, as well as the gardens and such which surrounded the castle. It was fun trying to imagine what it would have been like while the castle was still in use. The rest of the castle then, was a variety of history movies and slideshows, and then two floors of old Japanese antiques which were all pretty neat. Overall, I'd say it was a most excellent time.

After the castle, we were all quite tired and hot and a bit hungry, plus, we'd heard that the ice cream shop right outside the castle was amazing, so we decided to stop and get some ice cream. I had some green tea ice cream, and... wow it was good. It was most definitely worth it. I don't know what I'm going to do without green tea ice cream when I get back to the states!!!

Upon finishing, we decided to head out, which did take a little while to get all the way back to the train stations, but we thought it would be fun to head out and do some shopping. That being said, we went to downtown Osaka, where we found an absolutely giNORMOUS electronics store called Yodobashi Camera. Seriously. It. Was Huge. The entire first floor was completely dedicated just to phones! And then the second floor was cameras! That being said, I didn't go anywhere past the first floor because... I finally got a phone! Yay! I was so excited! Casey and her friends from union had basically planned this trip to meet up with an old TA of theirs, Yumi, so she was helping us all look around and was asking whether or not any of the dealers had pre-paid phones left. Well, after some searching, we finally found one! That had... four phones left. TOTAL. Four pre-paid phones, one of each color. Well, we grabbed those right up, ahaha. The only problem was that I got stuck with the pink one! Sad face! But it's not like... ostentatiously pink. It's very muted, and half whitish anyway. It really looks pretty stylish. But anyway, it took QUITE some time to get those, since it takes a while to fill out the paperwork, check in all of *your* paperwork, pick our your # and pin, pay, and all that jazz. That... for all *four* of us, ahaha. So yes, took a while. But we were all so excited! I've already figured out how to do tons of stuff on it, plus, the way the plan works, so long as you have 300yen left on your card, then you can text for free! So... as many as you want! And since all texts are really like e-mails in Japan, you can send pictures and music and such too for the same price. Awesome! As you might have guessed, I've already sent myself a number of ringtones, AHAHA.

When we were finally done purchasing our new phones, we were all quite hungry, so we headed out across a few streets to this really busy mall area with a number of different restaurants and TONS of different randoms shops, pachinko parlors and arcades. It was extremely busy, bright and noisy, lol. But we finally found a restaurant that looked both pretty good and cheap. It was quite amazing inside, actually. I think it was called... Penguin's Square? I know, random. But it had waterfalls and multiple floors and water running under glass that you walked on... it was pretty. We had such a big group though, that we got stuck in a back room, AHAHA. But it was probably a good thing, since it was easier for us to try and understand what we were all doing!! It's a good thing we had Yumi with us, or else we wouldn't have known what half the stuff on the menu was or anything that the waitress was trying to tell us! I had some... I'm not sure what they were. They were like sushi, but not. It was square of rice with crab on them. They were extremely delicious, though. Then we all shared some cheese gyoza thingies that were quite tasty. It was really humorous whenever we wanted to order more food though, because you had to do it through a phone on the wall, and the guy that was sitting closest to it always had to order, but he couldn't remember things for crap!!! Ahahaha. Plus, just listening to him order was funny. He'd be like... "Um, yeah. Okonomiyaki o kudasai. ...yeah thanks." I'm sure the people trying to take his order were a bit confused.

From there, it had gotten pretty late, so we headed back towards Hirakata. I'm getting quite good at using the trains, I must say, though my big train story won't come until my next entry. Overall, I'd say I'm really starting to understand how things work better over here, AHAHA. And that's a good thing. Otherwise, I would be so lost most of the time!

Oh yeah, one more funny story! When I came back to the house, Otosan, Okasan and Mai-san were all sitting around in the kitchen, and they were all quite excited by my new phone. And then, apparently, Otosan had just bought this new gadget. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but then I figured out that it was a mini picture printer! It printed out small polaroids, and you could send your pictures right from your phone through infrared (which is another amazing technology that the Japanese have in their phones). So everyone was really excited to try it out, so I now have a picture of both Otosan and I, and then a picture of Okasan, Mai-san and I. Ahaha, it was really humorous taking the pictures.

That was about all for Saturday though. Sunday I didn't do a whole lot besides hang around the house with Okasan and Mai-san, draw a little bit... watch some TV... eat some food... yeah, it was actually pretty nice though, after the extremely full day the day before. Monday's quite a different story though, but that will have to wait until the next entry since this one is already really, really long, plus I have to go to class!!

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