revisiting osaka
I need to sleep so unfortunately I cannot ramble on forever about Osaka as I would have liked to, but anyway most of my experiences/photos fall in the categories of either food or animals. The last time I went was apparently in the spring of 2003, but I left no records and consequently remember very little of my trip. Memory is a fleeting thing!
So this time-- I worked at the airport on Friday at the international departures terminal trying to get people to try sake and things. I got really annoyed with the Japanese people I was working with because I don't think they were trying very hard, but whatever. Then I met up with Grace and we had dinner and a super quick karaoke session ♥
On Saturday I had to figure out some stuff at the train station because I did something stupid. To ride the fast special trains with a designated seat you need two tickets, and I had accidentally mixed them up when I was getting into Osaka and gave one of my tickets for the ride home to the person at the window. It took them about an hour, but the station people had to actually go to the window I got off at and look through all the tickets from that day to find the ticket I needed to go home. But they did it, and all was good.
And then I went to the Osaka Aquarium (Kaiyukan) and obsessed over their capybaras and seals and otters. I think going to an aquarium in Japan is really special in that you constantly hear people remarking about how delicious this or that fish looks.
I found a little "animal park" area where you pay to get in and you can play with dogs and cats and rabbits and such, so I did that for a while and then I hung out in Shinsaibashi/America-mura until the Iwase Keigo concert.
Sunday was Dotonbori, wishing I could eat more than my stomach would allow, and Shinsaibashi (which I like a lot). My bags were way too heavy DD:
So anyway, animals:
The capybara is one of my greatest loves. They are so fat and always look so relaxed/lazy/carefree. I love them so much.
My capybara friend, take 2. There were two of them, but I liked this one better because of the whole barely-conscious thing it has going on.
I took a ton of cat pictures at the "animal park" I was at. Just a few:
This one clearly believed s/he owned the room. I love all of the confidence s/he radiated XDD
This one was all I'm better than you don't fuck with me and then it started sneezing and it was the grossest thing ever. All of this gunk came out of its nose and it started trying to lick it up. DD:
I was trying to figure out what kind of cat this is but it wasn't listed. Its fur was really wool-like, but otherwise it looked scary as hell. I wonder if something was wrong with it...?
From a healthy-ish restaurant in some underground shopping area in Namba. Agedashi tofu and karaage with veggies and vegetable soup. Yummy♪
This is ika-yaki. Kind of like a savory, eggy crepe with lots of squid in it.
Squid okonomiyaki! It was super thick and the squid was huge!
Takoyaki from Dotonbori! Apparently Kansai-style is without all the sauce and mayo and whatnot. It was reaaally good~~
Kushiage! There was squid, cod (I think), beef, pumpkin, and quail egg. SO GOOD.
I didn't actually eat these because I'm not that into cream puffs, but they are really cute! Takoyaki cream puffs!
Another for the "to try" list. Egg pudding.
And the concert! I think I want to do a separate post, but for now.
Iwase Keigo is a former member of 19, which is the first Japanese band I ever liked! They were super awesome, and even now at karaoke places there is almost always a 19 song in their top-sung list. They broke up really soon after I had finally collected all of their CDs, and listening to Keigo's music now, you can kind of tell that the direction he wanted to go in is really different. Kenji, the other member, still does folk pop/rock-esque stuff.
Still, it was really really really surreal to be able to actually hear him talk and sing after like 10 years of only listening to CDs and it was great to have had that opportunity. Neither of them have been that successful since 19, so this concert was in a really small hall with maybe 60 chairs and some sofas along the walls. I was really really close, of course, and at the end he came out to sign things and I got to talk to him but I was too nervous to do more than say thank you a million times.
I don't like his new musical style nearly as much as 19-era stuff, but the lyrics are still very similar, and hearing it all live felt different. His former bandmate Kenji is doing a national tour this year, too, and he'll be coming around my area in late summer/autumn. I can't wait to go and hear him and try to put them together in my mind. It will be fantastic.
The things he signed for me are on my wall now:
So this time-- I worked at the airport on Friday at the international departures terminal trying to get people to try sake and things. I got really annoyed with the Japanese people I was working with because I don't think they were trying very hard, but whatever. Then I met up with Grace and we had dinner and a super quick karaoke session ♥
On Saturday I had to figure out some stuff at the train station because I did something stupid. To ride the fast special trains with a designated seat you need two tickets, and I had accidentally mixed them up when I was getting into Osaka and gave one of my tickets for the ride home to the person at the window. It took them about an hour, but the station people had to actually go to the window I got off at and look through all the tickets from that day to find the ticket I needed to go home. But they did it, and all was good.
And then I went to the Osaka Aquarium (Kaiyukan) and obsessed over their capybaras and seals and otters. I think going to an aquarium in Japan is really special in that you constantly hear people remarking about how delicious this or that fish looks.
I found a little "animal park" area where you pay to get in and you can play with dogs and cats and rabbits and such, so I did that for a while and then I hung out in Shinsaibashi/America-mura until the Iwase Keigo concert.
Sunday was Dotonbori, wishing I could eat more than my stomach would allow, and Shinsaibashi (which I like a lot). My bags were way too heavy DD:
So anyway, animals:
The capybara is one of my greatest loves. They are so fat and always look so relaxed/lazy/carefree. I love them so much.
My capybara friend, take 2. There were two of them, but I liked this one better because of the whole barely-conscious thing it has going on.
I took a ton of cat pictures at the "animal park" I was at. Just a few:
This one clearly believed s/he owned the room. I love all of the confidence s/he radiated XDD
This one was all I'm better than you don't fuck with me and then it started sneezing and it was the grossest thing ever. All of this gunk came out of its nose and it started trying to lick it up. DD:
I was trying to figure out what kind of cat this is but it wasn't listed. Its fur was really wool-like, but otherwise it looked scary as hell. I wonder if something was wrong with it...?
From a healthy-ish restaurant in some underground shopping area in Namba. Agedashi tofu and karaage with veggies and vegetable soup. Yummy♪
This is ika-yaki. Kind of like a savory, eggy crepe with lots of squid in it.
Squid okonomiyaki! It was super thick and the squid was huge!
Takoyaki from Dotonbori! Apparently Kansai-style is without all the sauce and mayo and whatnot. It was reaaally good~~
Kushiage! There was squid, cod (I think), beef, pumpkin, and quail egg. SO GOOD.
I didn't actually eat these because I'm not that into cream puffs, but they are really cute! Takoyaki cream puffs!
Another for the "to try" list. Egg pudding.
And the concert! I think I want to do a separate post, but for now.
Iwase Keigo is a former member of 19, which is the first Japanese band I ever liked! They were super awesome, and even now at karaoke places there is almost always a 19 song in their top-sung list. They broke up really soon after I had finally collected all of their CDs, and listening to Keigo's music now, you can kind of tell that the direction he wanted to go in is really different. Kenji, the other member, still does folk pop/rock-esque stuff.
Still, it was really really really surreal to be able to actually hear him talk and sing after like 10 years of only listening to CDs and it was great to have had that opportunity. Neither of them have been that successful since 19, so this concert was in a really small hall with maybe 60 chairs and some sofas along the walls. I was really really close, of course, and at the end he came out to sign things and I got to talk to him but I was too nervous to do more than say thank you a million times.
I don't like his new musical style nearly as much as 19-era stuff, but the lyrics are still very similar, and hearing it all live felt different. His former bandmate Kenji is doing a national tour this year, too, and he'll be coming around my area in late summer/autumn. I can't wait to go and hear him and try to put them together in my mind. It will be fantastic.
The things he signed for me are on my wall now: