Advertisement
Published: January 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
I have decided that this post would take way to long and would include ridiculous amounts of extra pages to show all of the almost 400 pictures that I took. So I will cut it up based on the cities that I went to.
I left for Osaka Station at the unlovely hour of 7:08am. THe train down was a little crowded but it was to be expected for the New Years Vacation. New Years is when everybody goes home to visit family so the trains are packed and they make an insane amount of money. I didn't have a reserved seat from Tokyo to Osaka though, so I stood in line with everybody else to try an get a coveted seat in them. My line stopped moving after a while so I just jumped ship and decided that I would stand the whole way there; which is exactly what I did. Along with a couple other people as well. I stood near the door and watched Japan flyby the whole 2 and a half hours to Shin-Osaka station. I did try to read but there was no way I was going to be able to do it comfortably since
I really didn't have them much to lean against so I gave up after 10 minutes.
After I got to Shin-Osaka I asked the information man where the Midosuju Line was and then was on my way back to a full week of nostalgia. I made it to the Keihan Line and all I could remember was the last time I rode it. Gary was taking me to KIX and I was staring out the back window when he said, "One last look back?" and I gave a sad little, "Yeah." It's really amazing when I think about it. As soon as I got there all of the memories came back. Rather weird in my opinion. I met Chiaki at Kuzuha station where she drove us back to her house. Got my stuff in her room and chatted with her mom and dad for a little while and then she headed to work and I headed into Hirakata for a little trip down memory lane.
A lot hasn't really changed there. Some stores have moved and buildings have been redone but other wise, Hirakata still looks like the Hirakata from 2 years ago. I took the old walk
from the station all the way down to the seminar house, taking pictures the whole way. The markets is still where it was, all the major buildings and little buildings as well. Gaidai was closed for the winter vacation but I did get some pictures of it since I remembered last time that I have none. I basically took a photo journal of how to get to and from school everyday. When I got down towards the sem house I saw that all those new houses that had been built when I was here last time all have families in them now and there are a couple new ones there too. There is a giant park across the street now. I mean a giant park. It was nothing but separators when I was there last time. I was hoping to get some okonomiyaki from the lady next to the sem house but she was closed. So I headed down to the takoyaki lady and sure enough, there she was! I got the 6 for 200¥ deal and sat and enjoyed true Osaka takoyaki. She ever let me try to move them around after I asked her if it was hard
to make. She is so awesome. I used to walk down there pretty often when I was living in sem 1.
From there I headed down the old river walk to Makino to grab the train back to Hirakata. I walked around vivre, the new Book Off, and then into the Tsutaya to kill some time before I headed back to Kuzuha and snuggled into the Starbucks there to wait for Chiaki to get off work. We headed back to her house and had some dinner before hitting the hay for the longest day ever!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0278s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb