Osaka

Ani and I arrived in Osaka and for a minute I was reminded of LA! It was a side of Japan you don't get to see in Tokyo. There was barbed-wire on some of the fencing and a lot of homeless people in the street. It didn't help that the directions we had gotten to our hotel from the website were absolutely unhelpful. But luckily the famous Japanese hospitality also applied in Osaka. We entered another hotel and asked if they knew where ours was, and the man behind the counter actually drove us right to the door of our hotel! We're lucky he did, because we never would have found it otherwise. Since we were both really tired, we decided to have a low-key evening. We had dinner at a local shop where we were the only customers, and then rented some movies at the front desk (free for hotel guests) and fell asleep while watching them. The next morning we got up and decided what we were going to see in Osaka. To our dismay is was pouring rain, but we didn't let that stop us. We went to a shrine where we unfortunately found the worst part of the storm. Though it was pouring out, we explored the shrine. We didn't stay for very long because there was a wedding going on and we got yelled at when we tried to go deeper into the shrine.
After the shrine we went to the waterfront to see the aquarium. At the waterfront there was also a giant ferris wheel. It was the first time I had ever been in a ferris wheel! We waited until it was dark to ride the ferris wheel so we could see the city with lights. The windows were a little hard to see through because of the rain, but it was fun nonetheless. After riding the ferris wheel we were on our way to Kyoto, where we would spend the bulk of our trip...

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