Seeing Osaka

Maki kept us busy yesterday! Started with a wonderful breakfast prepared by Makis mom. Grilled fish, rice, little salad, pickled plums and things, tea of course. Yum. I could eat like this.

Took the bus to the local train to downtown Osaka where we saw Osaka Castle. Look it up on Wikipedia because I do:nt know if we can put pictures up on the blog yet. Must be so much more difficult for students to learn the extra couple millenium of national history.

From there we went into the business section of downtown Osaka. That was super interesting. I love to people watch and this was a people watchers delight. Business people and shoppers. I don:t think we saw any other tourists. Tons of bicycles riden by students to people in suits. \spectacular buildings.

Lunch at a ramen noodle place. Looked like many of the other customers were Panasonic employees as we were in the Panasonic (called National in Japan) building. \beautiful building, too, perhaps designed by IM Pei?

Went to a shopping district after lunch and spent a decent amount of time in a department store. Wow. Just walking around looking I felt I was being catered to. Food department in the basement was out of this world. I don:t think I could get myself to buy a $100 cantaloupe, but all the other fruits and veggies looked absolutely incredible. Ended up buying a cool yukata a traditional Japanese robe.

Part of the shopping lane was kind of a covered outside small street. The air conditioning from the stores kept it kind of cool. (Its quite warｍ and humid.) Crowds and crowds of people the vast majority young and hip. We went to a section called American Village which was like Melrose on steroids. I mean beyond Barry Bonds steroids. Teased up and dyed hair, torn jeans, tatoos, micro mini skirts, mu;sic blasting, the whole deal. Quite amazing. In some ways I felt like Iwas in the US, but everyone was Japanese. In other ways it was entirely different. Part of it was that not only was I one of the only foreigners around, I was also one of the only foreigners around, I was also older than most of the people there too.

Dinner at the best sushi restaurant I:ve ever been to. A special request from Rachael as it was her birthday.

Then back home on the train and bus. Today we go with Makis family to the baseball game!