Beautiful weather is not good for my productivity
At least on the blogging/scrapbooking front. I mean I’d much rather be outside right now as it has been absolutely gorgeous since I got back than blogging or scrapbooking, frankly. XD; Which is probably good as I tend to act like a computer-hermit, but it’s not very good for my grand resolutions to keep better track of my life (and my Tokyo trip, even).
That being said, while I am slowly accumulating a lot of other things to talk about, I AM determined to at least blog about the trip in its entirety because it was so awesome and this way if I don’t end up scrapbooking for a year I’ll be able to look at my blog and go RIGHT THAT’S WHERE THOSE PICTURES ARE FROM.
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Anyway so prior to the actual vacation, Kelsie, Edith and I had had several discussions with each other and various friends who had been to Japan about places we ‘needed’ to go see. Mostly, I wanted to know exactly how long we should be planning on spending in cities other than Tokyo, especially since we’d rented an apartment for the whole trip rather than for specific spans of time. From my girlfriends who had experienced Japan (or lived there) most recommended a day or two (depending on how much food I was planning on eating) and from all the guys… they really liked Osaka so they thought more like 4-5 days! We ended up only going for one day due to scheduling concerns (looming KAT-TUN concerts) and Kat’s whole seeing-a-dead-body-her-first-day-there story. But Osaka was so awesome, and we met such lovely nurses, that when we go back to Japan we’ll definitely spend at least a couple of days there.
What Kelsie and I both decided we HAD to see related to water; Kelsie really wanted to see the ocean and I wanted to go to the aquarium, to the point that I’d spammed her with website links until she agreed that yes, the aquarium did look pretty awesome and we should go. Minoru, Rika and Setsuko (and us) had one day transit passes that also included aquarium admission (these were adorable) so after lunch and Osaka castle we made our way towards the aquarium, which involved 3 different trains AND the subway… so I’m extra grateful for them because I don’t know that we would have been able to find it on our own.
The bay was lovely (and by the aquarium) and the aquarium was AWESOME. The water tunnel was not as long as I thought it was (apparently this aquarium is in Yokohama?) but still cool to stand underneath it and see fish swim over you (but this does not translate into pictures very well).
I did take picture of things OTHER than turtles, but for anyone that knows my fandom interests, I love turtles and take pictures of them, though I would never have one as a pet (the emotional trauma I would experience if it got hurt would not be worth it).
I didn’t get a picture, but there were these creepy almost 2-Dimensional fish, and Rika, Minoru, Setsuko and I spent almost 5 minutes staring at them waiting for them to blink (not sure why) and when they did it was really gross… like not an eyelid closing more like a vacuum sucking the eye back into the socket… makes me shiver thinking about it. This is probably why I don’t have a picture. Kelsie was confused at the time because she heard all 4 of us go ‘EHHHHH’ really loud when the fish blinked, LOL.
After the aquarium we went for fancy desserts, although this was actually really close to Kaiyukan. Like everything we’d gone to, the attraction was very helpfully surrounded by a mall, LOL. And they were running a sweets festival.
That’s a snow ice sundae! Not even ice cream. Pretty and delicious <3. Ours was mango chocolate with mochi :D. Rika and Minoru and Setsuko had a green tea mochi snow ice, which was also delicious (and gigantic). In our battle to try to pay for ourselves we lost AGAIN even though Kelsie managed to hand money to the poor cashier first, Rika yelled at the cashier and made her give the money back so they could pay >_>;; Someday they will come to Canada and we will pay for them!
After the aquarium we went to Osaka tower for drinks and dinner and this weird type of gambling that I was half-decent at, but if we’d realized we could have redeemed all the little balls for candy we’d have done that instead of playing all of them >_>. Oops! Rika and Minoru seemed to think it was really funny to keep putting 100Y coins in the machine to prevent us from leaving. For dinner we had kuchikatsu and cocktails (or beer, for the truly Japanese) XD; which was delicious and deep-fried though at some point our guides stopped telling us what we were eating… and waited to see our expressions. Needless to say I *DID* eat everything… and so did Kelsie. But if she couldn’t finish something because it was gross I did, LOL.
And that was pretty much Osaka! So awesome! Oh, one more thing because we did end up talking about it for the rest of the trip. We had so much fun with Setsuko, Rika and Minoru that we ALL lost track of time and had to run for the subway in an effort to make our Shinkansen… we cut it very close, made it to the station with about 4 minutes to spare and then started sprinting for the gates… didn’t make it though as Kelsie nearly twisted her ankle from running in flip-flops and I was not going without her! So we ran up 2 flights of stairs, through Osaka station (which is big), through the gates (the security guard told us we could make it), up an escalator and arrived on the platform right at the ticket time… just to see the doors close. Because everything in Japan leaves RIGHT ON TIME. Breathing heavy from hauling ass, we went back down to exchange our tickets and saw our guides waiting for us! Rika and Setsuko almost cried because we missed the train, but we assured them it was OK, as we could book tickets on the train in 40 minutes and we weren’t paying for the individual ticket.
Needless to say we were VERY early for the the train the next time we took the Shinkansen, LOL.