A of Nothing and a Day of Activity Again

February 11

Once more, doing practically nothing the previous day, I awake to a day full of new experiences unlike any that I have seen before; for today, I was to go... somewhere? I met up with Albert in front of the large park near his dorm where we discussed where to go today. We decided to go to Nara, home of many temples and scenic areas. Our first task was to reach the bus, so we walked over to the school's east gate where a closer bus stop to the station was. After waiting for the bus, it came and we boarded it to begin our trip. Once at the station, we purchased a ticket to Osaka, where we could switch train lines to Nara. Since I hadn't seen Osaka before and we had to go to another station, we walked around for awhile. At first glance, one could tell that Osaka was much larger than Hirakata. In fact, Osaka seemed much more modernized than anywhere that I have ever seen before. I was amazed to see the seven-lane street in the middle of the city. There were buildings with designs that I had never seen before and even a highway that went over the city. Once we reached the station, we checked the ticket price to Nara. Having already been undecided as to whether to stay in Osaka or go to Nara, we weighed the higher than expected price to Nara (plus the cost to go back) plus the hour to two hours that it would take to get there against the things we could do in Osaka and what time it was. From there, we decided to stay in Osaka and visit Nara perhaps next week.

With our change of plans, we headed to the best sightseeing location in Osaka, the Floating Garden. When at the top of this enormous building (as I heard, the second tallest in Japan), one can see the city of Osaka in its fullest. We stayed up there to sightsee for a long while. I really wish you could have seen it. Before we left, Albert had to get his fix of coffee. While he drank, we found a surprise. Apparently, the idea of mascots is not exclusive to America.

Once we left, we returned to the station to get our bearings. Unlike New York, it seemed that getting a taxi was not a difficult feat. From there, we prepared for our long walk ahead. We were going to walk from Umeda to Namba, which was projected to be an hour's walk. Once we began, we asked a Japanese man if we were going in the right direction. He asked if we were requesting a subway, but we said we were walking. After a moment of surprise from the man, he confirmed that we were on the right path. On the way to Namba, there were many sights to see. Before we got there, we ran across a surprise shrine in the middle of the street. Finally, we reached Namba. Despite having walked all the way there, we walked around some more to look at the sights. There were stores a-plenty and food everywhere. There were also several hotels. The whole area was flooded with people. Before going farther, we stopped for dinner. Here, I had my first Okinomiyaki; a vegetable pancake made with eggs. Our particular style included pork, shrimp, and squid. The squid, as most American readers would gawk at, was actually very tasty, to the point that I would happily order more when the opporunity arises. This is funny, considering that one of my Japanese friends proclimedly hates squid.

After dinner, we went to look at more sights in the area. On the way, we stopped at another coffee shop where I decided to get an item called Frozen Caramel. I got this not knowing whether it was a coffee product or not. It turned out to be, but since there was a strong caramel taste to it, I was able to drink it. After walking through the area some more, we began to walk back to Umeda. We noticed that the taxi surplus was not an isolated incident. We made one last pit stop at a familiar place before getting back. Albert ordered a Heinekin in support of his country while I did not feel like spending the money for anything at the moment. He insisted that I take a sip of his beer so I could taste the "superior" brew. It didn't taste all that bad, but I still did not want to pay $6 for a drink that I was too full to have.

Finally, we reached and boarded the train back to the station. Once we got there, as if we hadn't done enough walking, we took the 45 minute walk back to the dorms. On the way there, we stopped at the grocery store and the ¥99 store for some food for the next few days. Having reached the dorms, we went our separate ways.

As I foresaw, my dorm became lively once Mitch came back. With him, he brought two strays who were out too late to catch the last train. It was Keisuke and his friend from Austrailia. They were going to stay in our dorm, a practice that was clearly against the rules, and sneak out early so to not cause trouble. Because of our guests, my roommates stayed up until about three in the morning, which of course kept me up as well. Nevertheless, it was fun to hang out with everyone and share my experiences.