Osaka

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We went to Osaka the first week we got back from our visit home. Poor Stephen left that Wednesday for a conference, less then 48 hours after we arrived back in Tokyo. It was no surprise that he got sick. I was joining him on that Friday afternoon and he woke up that morning with a fever. On top of that it was really cold and rainy in Osaka. We stayed at the Ritz (I would live in their sheets!) so we made the best of the situation (I'm always happy to lay in bed and read).

Osaka is south of Tokyo, just a 2 1/2 hour Shinkansen (fastest train in the world) ride from Tokyo. Osaka really is just a smaller version of Tokyo. I went out to lunch by myself. Most restaurants in Japan offer "lunch sets" which consist of a salad, main course (usually a sandwich or pasta or curry rice dish) and tea/coffee. The problem with venturing outside of Tokyo is no one speaks English and they do not put many things in English. Leading to my point, that the menu was not in English. I ordered a pasta lunch set by pointing, but then I had to pick one of three pastas from the menu all written in Japanese. You'd go with the first one, right? It wasn't that bad, never had crab sticks in my pasta before or weird vegetables I still have not identified. Ok, so I didn't eat so much of it that the waitress brought the menu back over and asked if I wanted something else where I got to use one of the four sentences I actually know in Japanese "Oishi katta desu" (it WAS tasty). I lied, but again, I don't know how to say much.

Stephen was feeling better on Saturday, so we went and did one touristy thing before our train back to Tokyo, a trip to Osaka Castle. The outside of the castle is in its original form, but once you get inside it is all set up for tourists. Nothing inside is in its original form. It's completely empty except for the masks, helmets, scripts, letters, and chain link suits used during the fighting period. While it was crowded, we were the only gajin (white foreign people) there. The views are pretty neat from up top. It is amazing to be standing in something very old and historic and all around you are skyscrapers. This castle housed the original settlers in Osaka. In 1620, two sects split and began fighting over the castle and the land. They fought to a stale mate for 40 years, then began writing letters to each other, then reunited...ah, how communication works when swords don't.

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Photos

Protesters outside of castle
We never figured out what they were protesting (again, no English), but they were very peaceful

They changed positions all at once
They had music playing, I think that is how they knew when to move

Views from the top
Can you see the moat?

Stephen being artistic
Old and new (can you see the plane)

rock walls
you would not believe the size of the rocks that they were able to move by shoulder and ox. they used no cement...they just built castle walls and moats by stacking rocks on top of rocks. unreal