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Published: December 28th 2011
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Takoyaki
Yummy street food, a favorite in Osaka Christmas Day! We brought a few supplies and gifts to Beth so she unwrapped her gifts, including one from Luke and one from Jay and Linda and Grandma. We had breakfast in our room with groceries we bought at the grocery store that kinda looks like a casino from the outside with all the neon lights. We headed out on foot to Dotomboro shopping area. It is the crowded shopping district where most people shop with a riverwalk and plenty of restaurants and night life. It is basically an open street with outside entrances that were covered with a roof that stretches for blocks. We will probably return there tonight to eat. Large plastic and fiberglass sculptures advertise above restaurant entries like giant crabs, a steer, octupi, and some little horned red guy for hot food.
Beth took us to a 5 story department store called Don Quixote where they have a little of everything with a ferris wheel on top of and around the store. They really like ferris wheels here, they are all over the city. WE walked through the kitchen supply stores in Dotombori, and we enjoyed the kitchen supply area, everything you can think of for
cooking asian style. Plenty of good eats here so we will return.
We took the train back to our hotel for a short rest before heading out to have dinner with the Nakajima family, Beth's host family!! We went to an "All you can eat" Shabu Shabu style dinner. They brought us thin sliced Beef and Pork along with vegetables and dipping sauces and we cooked our meal at the table in boiling sauces. We also ordered sides of salmon salad, fried rice (super yummy with crab meat in it and sesame seeds), fried chicken, and crab dumpling sides.
After dinner we went to the Nakajima's home and they opened the gifts we brought to them. The girls liked the sweatshirts with CU logo and Bop It game, Okasan liked her Lasagna pan and we brought the men gifts also.
On our way back to the hotel we got off the train along the river and looked at the Christmas lights. They were quite impressive and set to music. A boat will take you for rides up and down the river Yodo Ga Wa and they were decked out in lights. There were food vendors and plenty
of young people everywhere. It was freezing cold and we had our less than warm clothes on so we were quite chilly. The young women are always dressed to the 9s and there were so many of them walking around with dresses and tights or even bare legs! They looked so cold! People watching is incredibly fun here and the fashions are beautiful and unique. I've never seen so many varieties of dressy boots. The guys seem to spend as much or more time on their hair as the girls. They blow dry it and spray it and the funny thing is that a lot of the guy hairdos look a lot like my hair.
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