Day 6: Stretching those Vocal Chords

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Today, we decided that we wanted to visit Osaka and Jun had a day off of work, so he decided to come with us. Jun knew of a youth hostel he wanted to stay at in nearby Shin-Osaka, so we were set for the night. We took the train to Shin-Osaka and left our bags at the hostel so we would be free to walk around.

For lunch we took the train to Osaka proper where Jun treated us to a dish he said was very popular in Osaka, okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is kind of like a multi-layered pancake full of seafood, including octopus, and vegetables. Jun said that it is common to smother it with mayonnaise, so we did. It was very good. Served with the okonomiyaki was takoyaki. Takoyoki is basically a hollow circular bun filled with batter, vegetables, and octopus. It has a fairly mild fishy taste and is quite good if you can handle the texture of the octopus and batter. Jun said to put some sort of brown sauce on top of them which turned out to be delicious, though they were quite difficult to eat as far as maneuvering chopsticks was concerned.

After lunch, we headed to a karaoke establishment, a very fancy place filled with high-tech equipment, full Bose speaker systems in each room, and several private rooms with free drinks. A very different atmosphere than karaoke night at the local bar. Jun started us off with a few songs while we browsed through the catalog. Sean jumped at the opportunity to spit some of Kanye West's mad rhymes and I opted for something more tame, very boring, and largely uninteresting; Cake's Going the Distance. (thanks for that contribution Sean). The karaoke system was hooked up to a database of some sort and ranked you on how well you sang the song against all the other people who had sang the song. I happened to get 2 first places, nevermind that I was the only one to sing those songs. The songs Jun sang were certainly more popular as they had several hundred ranks.

When we had finished singing, we made our way back to Shin-Osaka and the hostel, this time to check-in. The room was very large, and was divided into western and Japanese styles. In one half you had your tatami mats and short table, which was easily moved to lay down a futon from the closet. In the other half, we had bunk beds and a standard table with chairs. We slept until around 10pm, woke up, got some food, and then made it back to the room just in time to enjoy a little whiskey before heading to bed for good.

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