大阪へ -- A trip to Osaka

Hello! Bienvenue! Willkomen! добро пожаловать! में आपका स्वागत है! 안녕하세요! ласкаво просимо! Chào đón! ยินดีต้อนรับ!
(I sure hope google translate didn't lie to me for those last six... :P)

I saw that a few people in those countries glanced at my blog at one point. Yay! (Internet, we love you.) Welcome, I hope you enjoy(ed) what you saw. :3

So, way back around the end March (2012), I decided to escape the cold and a) go visit a few friends in Osaka, b) see how far the cherry blossoms were advancing, and c) just really escape the cold.

Taking advantage of the new, cheap Peach Airline, I flew there for a roundtrip of probably under $300? Finding the Peach counter in Chitose could take a while, but they have signs and it's not all that complicated, just give yourself an extra 10 mn to get there (they have strict regulations about time, etc). The plane is actually purple and pink, but-- the seats are kinda small. I'm average, and I felt almost too large for those seats! Not to mention my knees touched the seat in front of me, so-- if you're used to leg room, you might want to reconsider... A minor downside at getting cheap tickets is that drinks aren't included, you have to buy them (unless you bring your own, totally kosher within Japan). But still, a pretty short trip, and one way I had three seats to myself, w00! (Note: they actually have different seat types, so it depends which plane you get...)

Without further ado, I give you, Osaka in three days.


This by no means is the order of the pictures, but I went to and saw:

•  大阪城　Osaka castle and the Osaka castle park
• アメリカ村　America-mura (American village)
• 道頓堀　Dotonbori
• 心斎橋筋商店街　Shinsaibashi-suji shotengai
• Hozenji yokocho
• HEP Five
• 大阪天満宮　Temmangu shrine
• 四天王寺　Shitennoji
• 天王寺公園と動物園　Tennoji park and Tennoji zoo
• 通天閣　Tsutenkaku
• 新世界　Shinsekai
• 住吉大社　Sumiyoshi-taisha shrine

And once again, I fail to add captions because otherwise, the nicely aligned pictures would battle each other gorily for the most out of place spot. So a few comments:

1. I will have myself a Japanese (Zen) garden when I have a house of my own, I will!
2. As nice as the Tennoji park was, don't go to the zoo unless you want to get depressed... I didn't remember my last time at the zoo before then, and I really honestly regret going. Just free the poor souls, they have no room to thrive!
3. I really liked seeing the old castle walls and a modern skyscraper in the background.
4. The cherry blossom was my first, since ours didn't appear until much later (I'll have a post about that later.)
5. I really liked the random "Peace, Earth" graffiti in the American village.
6. The blurry picture of the escalator really fails to show how long it was.
7. The picture of the star-looking glowing thing is the ground, it was awesome. The picture after that is of the building from which I took the overview of the city from.

There you have it, Osaka in a blurr. A lot to see, and of course, a lot to eat! Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き） and takoyaki (たこ焼き） are obvious favorites, but since I don't really eat seafood besides fish and crab, I'll you decide how delicious the latter is.

I take my leave for now and go prepare the next post! Please read the note below as it's fairly important. :)

Important note: I don't think this needs to be said, but I'll say it anyway. All pictures are mine ©, and I'd be flattered if you want to use them for whatever reason, but please contact me beforehand. Thank you.