Japan Day 3

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We got a slow start in the morning knowing that we had laundry to do first off. We cooked eggs, ate left over sushi, and yogurt for breakfast. It was a bright sunny morning and as we walked to the laundromat (itty-bitty laundromat) and the machines were tiny, they almost looked like toy machines. We noted many more businesses open and street workers as today was a working day. The city had a crew of four painters, and two supervisors wearing bright flourescent green vests, painting green areas on the sides of our street with white lines. One supervisor to two workers, just like America. I think the uniformed supervisors were there to keep bicyclists off the fresh paint, as they seem to zig-zag to any convenient part of the street to avoid people and cars. The laundromat sits on a corner and had six small 4.5kg 100 yen washers, and four 100 yen gas dryers. The room is a triangle no bigger than 12 by 12 feet on the walls. It had a wall laundry soap dispenser for 40 yen, and an elderly gentleman who followed us in to tell us in Japanese and body language that somebody had slammed the bill changer off the wall and taken it. Kristy and Beth went for change buying instant noodle cups for lunch: I stayed to guard the laundry. The man told Beth in Japanese to be careful because somebody liked to steal women's clothing out of the machines.

After laundry we had our 100 yen instant noodle lunches. Yakisoba, soy-seaweed mystery, and chicken broth mystery flavors. We headed out for the subway to the Osaka aquarium. The feature of the day was a "Penguin Parade" where they take the emperor penguins and march them on blue matting in a square. There is a big crowd and screaming children and the keepers get the emperor penguins to waddle along in a group of about 15. The whole time the penguin head caretaker and an emcee tell all about the penguins. The "Penguin Parade" is pronounced "Pen-geen Parad-O" many, many times, over and over for about fifteen minutes before in starts.

We entered the Osaka Aquarium which is the largest and nicest indoor aquarium I have ever seen. They have the exhibit set up by zones or different world biomes, and you go up an escalator and start at the top, and descend down into all the giant tanks with plexiglass viewing windows. The plexiglass is one foot thick for the big tank to hold the water weight. The feature is a massive whale shark about 15 feet long that was being fed when we arrive along with many of the exhibits. There are also, Amazon rainforest species, sea otters, Japanese otters, sea lions, porpoise, grouper, hammerhead sharks, giant manta rays, trout, char, eel, snow king crabs (yummy), clown fish, jellyfish, snapper, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. We we strangely attracted to the giant whale shark pillow in the gift shop for 70 dollars, but didn't take the bait.

We rode the Giant Ferris Wheel as part of the aquarium tour next. The city has two or three wheels that you can see from many places. This wheel is 340 feet tall and the tallest in the world, it was brightly lit for Christmas. It takes 30 minutes to make the trip around and from the top you can see most of Osaka and the giant harbor with ships coming and going. We rode the wheel at dusk watching the city lights come on, the view is amazing.

We rode the subway to Dotombori area to go eat Okonomiyaki. I have noted that cereal grains here are very expensive. 70% of Japan is forest, and most arable land is used for rice production. Wheat and corn are all imported and very expensive. One dish touted as a treat is corn with butter and bacon on it. Okonomiyaki is when some chefs got together and said, "Hey, we have all this cabbage, and all these eggs, let's make them into pancakes!!" So they did. There are many varieties of the cakes, shrimp, clam, pork, onion instead of cabbage, with soy, without, etc. All are grilled and served on a hot griddle which is part of your table. They are brought hot to the table and placed on the grill and you cut them up with small paragonal servers. I had shrimp, Kristy pork, and Beth onion and shrimp. I thought the pork best. We left the restaurant not to wander much more and went on foot back to the hotel where we went to sleep.

By Greg

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Photos

Tallest Ferris Wheel in the World
The views are amazing, we were over the harbor, the aquarium and the city, it was just beginning to turn dark.

Comments

[deb b]

I am so enjoying your re-cap of your days there. The pictures are fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. I was actually intrigued by the discription of the "cabbage" pancakes until I saw the picture of them.... after all, it is all in the presentation... right? Were they good? The pictures from the ferris wheel are great. I just keep smilin' while I think of you guys there with Elizabeth!

[skibum]

blogs
I'm glad you liked the blogs. I can't sleep, it's 4:18 Sat morning. I had the worst headache so I took some tylenol that had caffeine in it. Oops, that along with jet lag is going to really screw me up. Will have plenty of time to work on my blog now, I need to finish up!