２０１４年５月２４日−２６日

May 24th:

This week was a very special week for two reasons. 1) My girlfriend Maika, on her way to her 2 month internship in Taipei, stopped by to spend some quality time with my in Osaka. 2) (and because of reason 1) I got the week off work which means I got a great opportunity to explore Japan.

The adventure started on Saturday when I packed my bags and headed to Kansai International Airport to meet Maika at the airport. We were greeted by these lovely Cosplaying girls who were super excited when I said Okini instead of Arigato after taking a picture (it's the local dialect way of saying thank you)

さすが日本人。Classic.

 Anyways, It's a big city and cats easily get lost, so I guided her to our hotel, the Sheraton Miyako in 上本町 Uehonmachi. We didn't waste any time and hit a small ramen store for dinner, we were looking for something authentic.

My ramen and our shared dumplings.

A picture of my girlfriend taking a picture of the food for her blog that I put on my blog.

After dinner we made our way to the Intercontinental at Umeda to meet up with my friends at a nice bar. We stopped here to take a quick pic with the typical Osaka background of narrow, crowded shopping streets.

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Happy 4 years anniversary. Got my girly Pina Colada, her martini, and big fancy bottle of cognac between us.  

The view was really breathtaking from the lounge, which explained the 980 yen beers.. But here's the view..

Of course this doesn't do the view justice, but it's a nice anniversary shot. 

May 25th:

A lovely day to explore Osaka. And so we did. Maika brought me a lovely breakfast in the morning because she was jet lagged. Then we headed out to Tennoji, Osaka's historic city center, to check out the zoo and park. Here are pictures from the zoo.

A massive pelican.

A boa.

Lions!

Giraffe and a Zebra

 The zoo only cost 700 yen, but gave you much more value. Unfortunately, the animal enclosures seemed a little undersized, and the animals didn't seem the happiest. Nonetheless, it is always humbling to witness wild animals in real life. We had a great time.
Afterwards, we headed to Osaka castle to see my old friend Shunya performing at a jazz festival. We got there just in time to hear the last 1 and a half pieces his band was playing. I played trumpet with Shunya in high school, but he has gotten ridiculously good. In fact, he was chosen as the the 2nd trumpet player (the part that plays all the solos) for the All-Kanto band. Basically he is the most promising young trumpet player in the greater Tokyo area.. Here's a snippet of him playing a solo.

 After his band played, I got to catch up with him for about half an hour. Next time I'm in Tokyo, I'll be sure to pay him a visit and bring my guitar for some good old fashioned blues.

He's the man. 

After a long day of walking, we mustered to the strength to hit up Dottonbori, basically the heart of modern Osaka. We also ate an all you can eat pizza dinner there. Good ol' Shakey's.

The Glico Man, as shown earlier in this blog.

And who could forget the Asahi ad right across the bridge? 

We ended the night with a run to Daiso, the ultimate 1 dollar store, and a run to Family Mart for some late night munchies before we slept.

May 26th:

Started out with some bomb Japanese bakery breakfast.

Good stuff.

Since it was a raining, we took this day to make a trip to Osaka's famous 海遊館 Kaiyukan Aquarium, all indoors. The entry fee was steep, but the value was amazing. Serene meditation accompanied by clear pathway through aquariums themed on various parts of the world. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Giant Japanese Salamander

This area contained freshwater fish, otters, and freshwater crabs. Really nicely built.

Barrier Reef fish.

Squid.

Massive Sunfish.

The biggest tank, full of rays and sharks. 

Gotta love those ray's mouths.

This thing was like 6 feet long..

This seal got up close for a photo.

So colorful.

Sea Turtle. 

Also came in for a close up.

Giant spider crabs.

A glowing jellyfish. Hard to capture their bioluminescence.

Some more glowing jellyfish.

This just looked too cool. Like trees down a suburban neighborhood.

Hey there big guy.

Straight leopard print. Got to touch them, though I'm sure they didn't enjoy it very much..

There was even a sloth exhibit, where you could test what it feels like to be a sloth..

At the entrance. The coolest was when there was a hammerhead shaped shadow on the floor cause the shark swam above the tube.

After the aquarium, we headed to the local market to get some 回転寿司 Kaiten sushi (conveyor belt sushi). It was fun to try all the different types of sushi, but I decided to pass on the whale sushi.. Just couldn't get those episodes of Whale Wars and the Cove out of my head. It was a lovely meal, topped with delicious ice cream.
We took advantage of the day pass of railways we got and headed to Shinsaibashi again for dinner. We ate at another tasty ramen shop and explored the area after dinner. We happened to walk to the west end of Dottonbori, where we came across a bunch of cheaply lit "love hotels", where you pay for a room by the hour to bring in lovers.. Usually there is a negative connotation to these places cause a lot of salarymen cheat on their wives there.. Still interesting to see the darker parts of Japan.
We ended on a happy note, and went to Family Mart again for a pre-sleep meal. :P We are big time foodies..