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Published: October 5th 2005
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Levi & I
Shinsaibashi on Friday night always makes us get a little silly! "Absinthe has a wonderful color, green. A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?"
"After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world." - Oscar Wilde
Sorry guys I was a little late on this one. I would have liked to of thought that I was the first to come across Café Absinthe, but I’m only following up on the hype that’s been built up by fellow exchange students. Café Absinthe is located in Shinsaibashi Osaka, only a few blocks away from the giant Apple store and America Town hidden away like a little jewel. I ventured to the café this past Friday accompanied by Kellie & Levi of America and Sebastian & Aisha of Australia. We stopped off for some cheap burgers because everyone was hungry, but Kellie and I had just finished eating Thai food so we were along for the ride. Luckily we had Thai food because the burgers
Cafe Absinthe
All the pretty green goodness on display for us foreigners who seem to be the only people who come to this place. looked a little too heavy for my liking. From there we went to the café. When we rolled in we were the only people in the entire bar. Fine by us for the time being. The entire bar was decorated with neon green lighting and many glass bottles placed everywhere to entice us. Some nice hookahs were also on display. We all decided to order the most expensive Absinthe drink which was around 170 proof and cost 1,400Yen. The whole preparation to drink was very interesting. First you have your standard empty wine glass with a lemon at the bottom. Then you have a sugar cube placed on top, held by a thin piece of metal. The shot of absinthe is poured over the sugar cube and then set on fire. The sugar melts into the glass with the rest of the Absinthe and then you can either fill the glass with hot water or cold water. I decided to drink mine hot. Even with all of the water to dilute the drink it was still extremely potent. Just as the rumors say, Absinthe tastes just like black licorice. I finished my drink very slowly unlike my counterparts. Kellie was
Preparation
With all the hype behind this drink it's only fitting that it also has a long drawn out process to prepare. feeling it that night and ordered quite a few drinks including her beloved drink, which is not Fosters! Sebastian and Aisha decided to drink different types of Spanish drinks whose names I forget. I didn’t drink anything else that night. I was feeling pretty good. Somehow, I’m not sure exactly how, but we decided to buy a hookah. I think because it was so dirt cheap compared to everything else in Japan. We had cappuccino flavor so it was quite nice, being an avid coffee drinker. The bar really filled up by time midnight rolled around. One thing easy to notice is that not a single Japanese person was around other than the workers. Maybe the Japanese aren’t aware of the fame of Absinthe or just don’t care. I’m not sure. Anyway, we caught the last train home because no one was feeling the idea of sleeping outside in Osaka, I can’t blame them honestly. Sebastian made the train ride home interesting by pretending to be a train groper and messing with us the entire time. The train was so loud I felt like we were yelling into each others ears. We were practically on top of each other anyway
Konpai
Ok ok here we go, let's see what this black licorice is made of... because the subway system in Japan is so flooded when the last trains start to arrive. The mad dash begins for people who don’t want to be stranded outside. Yeah, good night! Oh, plus I finally managed to buy the Coldplay album X&Y that I’ve been really wanting to listen to lately. Thank you Tower Records!
Saturday was decided to be another action packed day because that’s the only way we like to do things around here. I was joined by Levi & Kellie again as well as Haruna, Nao, and Tsukasa all from Japan of course! We ventured off out of Hirakata to go watch Charlie in the Chocolate Factory in English dialogue and Japanese subtitles. The movie was decent, not much I can say really, but it was also strange. Good fun and a big positive to it was that since we went on the first of the month the movie price was half off. AMEN! I definitely prefer the umpa loompas from the original movie. After the movie we went back and hung out near Hirakata Park waiting to meet up with Madoka, Ayako, and Nono for dinner and Karaoke!! We decided to grab some cheap
Round #2
The crazy kids continue onward fearing not the wrath of the green devil. Chinese food nearby and then get started! Daisuke and Mizuki also joined us later for the event. We booked a room for four hours which is definitely not enough for karaoke, but ok whatever. The karaoke place was filled with intoxicated exchange students being loud, but they were funny too. I think the Japanese people always get a kick out of foreigners making fools of them selves. My highlight of the evening was signing a duet with Haruna set to Dancing Queen. We both told each other it was so much fun and we felt completely high with joy while singing. IT was so grand and hard to explain, but I loved every second of it. Everyone sang so well, it was great. It’s always a game for me when my Japanese friends sing songs for me to try and read the hiragana, katakana, or kanji as fast as the song is going. Karaoke could seriously be helping my reading skills. Haha,… Anyway, I slept over at Daisuke’s apartment with Levi because we’d be waking up in a few hours to go to Universal Studios Japan….
Universal Studios Japan (USJ) is like a little chunk of America thrown into
Levi and his Hookah
Straight out of Alice in Wonderland. This was my first time using a hookah. Japan. The streets of the park are so decorated and filled with so much architecture it really crates the illusion of being in a city like Boston. Not that I’ve ever been to Boston, but how I would picture it. USJ was pretty good I guess for how expensive it costs to get in. Yeah, I had to be touristy; I’m so good at it! Let’s see I managed to ride Back to the Future, Spider Man, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and Terminator. We also watched a live action show set to Water World, which was absolutely amazing. One funny element to the show was the cast consisting mostly of foreigners from around the world who couldn’t speak Japanese so it was easy to tell they were faking the talking the entire time and being over dramatic about everything. The Japanese definitely love their pyrotechnics. I thought I was going to melt several times throughout the show from all of the massive explosions. It started to rain around 6PM so I left and headed to Kyobashi station to meet up with Yuko who was returning from her weekend away from Osaka in another prefecture. She was soaking up in Onsen that
lucky girl! We ended up coming back to Hirakata grabbing some Okonomiyaki and then sneaking into the Seminar House. You see it’s always a game because people who do not go to Gaidai are not allowed to enter the seminar house so it’s always a sprint past the front door game when we hang out. So far so good…!
Oh, I have good news for all you Baseball fans…. The Hanshin Tigers won the division!!!! OMEDETOU!!!! Just a few weeks ago I was wating them at Koshien and now they are champs, how cool, yeah? Oh yeah! Osaka was in a complete uproar because of the victory. Cops everywhere barbed wire on bridges and all. Japanese baseball fans apparently like to jump off bridges when their team wins. The problem is that in the past few years many people have also died celebrating this way. Katobase Kanemoto!
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LostInOsaka
Kellie Sharp
O_o
Fosters? FOSTERS?!?! *mutters a deadly onmyou curse* You're gonna pay for that one! It's GUINESS!