Mar 14, 2013 - Osaka, Japan

Osaka with a population of 2.65 million is the third largest city in Japan next to Yokohama and Tokyo. The name means “city of water” because of the numerous rivers and canals that run around and through the city. Although it is a very modern city in many ways, we spent half of our day here looking at the past history at Osaka Castle. This massive castle was completed in the mid 16th century by the Shogun Toyotomi, the Shogun that united all of Japan for the first time in history. This massive complex, complete with 4500 Cherry trees and...

May 26, 2012 - Fugu and Other Firsts

One of the things I wanted to do during this visit to Japan was try fugu. It's not that I heard it was particularly tasty, just that if not prepared properly it can kill you. Chefs have too go through special training to make sure they remove the toxic parts of the puffer fish before they serve it to you. needless to say this all adds to the cost and subsequently it's mystique. Akie had tracked down a reasonably priced restaurant that serves nothing but fugu. It was located in the main fish market so you knew it was fresh. I ordered a set...

May 25, 2012 - Shopping till I Drop

I hit a wall today. It inevitably happens at least once on all long trips. Although I've gotten used to sleeping on the futon, I woke up achy. The room has no windows, so I didn't realize it was raining until I went down for breakfast. I had planned to do some sightseeing on my own but decided just to stick to the vast areas of the city connected by underground malls and arcades. My first stop was the nearby Shinsaibashi Dept Store. They were just opening as I entered and all the employees stood at attention while a recording played...

Mar 5, 2012 - Osaka

First of all, I apologize for the lack of updates to my journal. There hasn't been a lot going on recently due to the large amounts of snow in the area. It's finally started to clear up around here, so I finally got back to traveling around Japan. Last Friday, I had a job interview in Osaka for a different position with the same company I'm at now. Fortunately, I had some time off after that, so I decided to hang around Osaka for a while. Once my interview was finished, I headed back to Osaka station and went to my hotel. I chose the Hotel...

Nov 14, 2011 - Universal Studios - Osaka

When we arrived into our hotel, the first thing the man did (after we had paid) was head to the pamphlet stand and give us everything there was to do in Osaka. We had already gone through most of them using the internet before arrival and it came as no real big surprise when one of them was the Universal Studios theme park Osaka (although the guide itself was written in Korean?) As with all theme parks it was very expensive and because its Japan, it was always destined to be crowded. All the reviews suggested buying those short cut tickets...

Nov 12, 2011 - Osaka Aquarium and Castle grounds

Yay for more videos. The camera has decided that the lowest quality takes up more space, so we can now only upload 5 second segments. With the camera armed anyway, we went to see the biggest tank in the whole of Japan. Unlike most aquariums this one had land based animals, such as coatis and capybaras. We were both giggling because we had seen these on mass in South America. It also so happened we went on a school visiting day, so there about 1000 children the age of 6-ish, not as bad as it sounds. With land animals out of the way, we...

Nov 10, 2011 - Osaka and Shanghai Ferry (Su Zhou Hao)

We have finally arrived in the land of the rising sun, after a 2 day journey on a boat not too dissimilar from the Condor ferry. They ferry looked like it could hold a lot more passengers, but in the end it looked like there were barely 20 of us on board. We had a cabin to our selves (usually 4) and had quite an enjoyable time. Just being on the move again makes everything feel that little bit better. The ship had a reading room, games room, restaurant, bar and few other rooms. With so few of us we had most of it to ourselves. It took us...

Oct 9, 2011 - Arrival in Japan

Flew from Portland to San Francisco, then to Kansai Airport that serves Osaka and Kyoto. Arrived in early evening, and the guides (Douglas Roth and Tamao Goda) had thoughtfully reserved rooms at an airport hotel so we could get a good night’s sleep before starting on our two-week adventure with them. We spent some time getting to know them and a few of the other group members before our early bedtime.

Sep 22, 2011 - Osaka

Kyoto to Osaka, Sept 20th. Today I packed up from the Sparkling Dolphin on a rainy overcast day in Kyoto and headed south to the city of Osaka. Osaka,Kyoto, and Kobe are like a tri-city area. All within a short distance of each other. Once checked into my hostel, which took some time to find, I went for a small walk around the hood. I think the hood is the right name for this area. I could see it was a bit run down. It was the first time I saw some homeless in Japan. I believe the area use to be a bit of a large tourist area years ago. The...

Sep 8, 2011 - Osaka

Osaka is a fantastic place to hang out in Japan. First day that I was here I spent it walking through a really large and interesting aquarium. The Osaka aquarium is quite neat architecturally speaking as it is six stores tall and has a spiral like structure to walk through all the way down (escalator to the top from the start). The really large tank in the middle has all types of fish, sting rays, and sharks etc. all swimming together. It is quite the sight to see. I found out about this aquarium from a girl that was staying in Kyoto and...

Aug 23, 2011 - Arriving in Osaka, Japan

Jay We have jumped into the world river! We were the only anglos on our flight from Honolulu to Osaka, very exciting. It was a surprisingly pleasant eight hour flight. We arrived in Osaka tired and excited. When we came out of customs I was pleasantly surprised by the total lack of hawkers, no one trying to get us to their hotel or to use their taxi. It made for a much calmer intro than you tend to get in other countries. We changed some money (the dollar has taken a beating in the past few months), rented phones and figured out where the...

Aug 22, 2011 - Osaka Ookini!

Our first impression of Osaka was not great. We arrived at Shin-Osaka station and got in a cab to go to our hotel. I handed the driver the hotel information which I had printed out in Japanese (complete with map) and he seemed completely perplexed. He kept asking me for the phone number and I kept pointing to it on the paper. Eventually I realized he didn't recognize it as an Osaka number because it included the country code for Japan (duh). Once he was able to call we headed off. It was exciting to see the famous neon lights of Osaka as...