Japan Osaka

---

I decided to save some money by staying in Osaka for my last week and travelling the 30mins on the Shinkansen to Kyoto for day trips, I’m glad I did! I met two Aussie blokes the first night, Mitchell and Jason - we spent the next 7 days together and saw all the attractions, we wandered through the streets, shopping malls and drank a lot, we also met a Mexican (Bruno) who joined us for couple of days. On the second day we saw Osaka castle which had some very nice cherry blossoms, not in full bloom yet but they were pretty. The castle like many others was stunning. It was my intention to get a decent photo in front of the castle but the Japanese couple that took the photo took it at such an angle im standing in front of the lift and the heating vent. Brilliant. This just reinforces the snap happy stereo type. We then spent an hour in Osaka aquarium where I was bitterly disappointed at having spent £16 to see something that is supposed to be well worth the money, it wasn’t, any sea world you would visit is much better. I liked the way the aquarium was designed, you start on the top floor and look down on the marine life and as you descend the building you see different views but at the end of the day it’s just the one main tank. We spent the rtest of the night drinking.
The next day we spent the morning in the Umeda sky building with its rooftop observation deck on the 37th floor and wandered around some of the shops before heading to Ebisu-Bashi, the party district where we had Okonomiyaki & Sake for dinner (A local specialty, similar to a pancake but stuffed with beef and seafood) During our search for a bar we ended up in a karaoke bar for 2 hours and sang all the cheesy music you can think off. We searched for another bar, Bruno had an early flight so he headed back and we continued our search. After wondering around for 10minutes we found a bar that wasn’t dissimilar to the set of Cheers, the downside was that a G&T would set you back £8. On the way out we met two American girls Pam and Lora, whom we spent the rest of the night with and ended up in another bar, around 2am one of the girls called it a night but the other girl stayed with us and we followed up the bar with more karaoke until 5 am where we caught the firth train back to where we were staying, had 2 hours sleep and headed off to find the other American and get something to eat.

---