Day Two: Osaka (Osaka Castle and Floating Garden Observatory)

After finishing the aquarium, I headed for Osaka Castle. I meant to quickly snap a few pictures of the outside and check out the museum inside and then go eat takoyaki at a certain place (at a different station). My plan was foiled! But it was okay!

While I was walking up to the castle, I stopped to read some sign about it, and this man started talking to me. He pretty much decided that we were going to hang out and he was going to tell me all about the castle and the grounds (mostly in Japanese, with the occasional English word and quite a few gestures). I would have found this extremely sketchy anywhere else in the world, but he just wanted me to enjoy Osaka! It was fun! I looked at a lot more of the grounds than I would have otherwise, and I learned things! The museum was really interesting too; it would be cool if the inside of the castle looked like it really used to, but since it doesn't, the museum is definitely great. There were a lot of cool screens (including some depicting gruesome war scenes!) and interesting stuff about early Western influence on and/or opinions about Japan.

Afterwards, my friend-of-the-afternoon bought me takoyaki and then we went to a shrine across the street and then he showed me a kendo training center nearby where we could watch them practicing, and it was awesome.

After we parted, I headed back to Osaka Station intending to get the train back to Kyoto. As we reached the station, I spotted the Umeda Sky Building again, and I changed my plan. "It is on your left," I told myself. "If you remember what direction it is in, you have to be able to find it when you get out of the station." So I did, although it was difficult because I had to make a lot of turns to get out of the station, and then once I got out, although I could see the building, it wasn't a direct route to get there. But I made it and went up to the observatory which was SO AWESOME. I'm so happy I couldn't find the building during the day because the view was so great at night! And the ground up there had glow in the dark bits and there was random cool lighting and it was really lovely. I stayed there for a while enjoying the view (inside and outside) and then headed back to Kyoto. It was a lovely lovely day in Osaka!

Day Two: Osaka (KAIYUKAN)

Yesterday I went to Osaka. My first plan was to go to the Floating Garden Observatory at the Umeda Sky Building. I saw the building from the train. I could not find it when I got out of the station. At the time I did not know what the building was called, only what it looked like, so I couldn't even ask anyone. Eventually, I gave up and moved on to my next plan, which was to visit the KAIYUKAN, the big aquarium in Osaka. It was so so great (even though, you know, there are fish at aquariums, and I am scared of fish)! There were a lot of great creatures to look at, like otters and dolphins and itty bitty crabs and ginormous crabs and penguins and manta rays and whale sharks. SO COOL!

Enjoy a video that includes some awesome whale shark action!

And enjoy some pictures of awesome creatures! And some random penguin art!

Day One: Kyoto (Higashiyama-ku)

So after my amazing shinkansen trip, I arrived in Kyoto in the afternoon. I had been up late the night before at a Halloween party, so I was kind of tired, and it was raining, so I decided to not bother trying to figure out how to get to a new sightseeing spot and just went back to Kiyomizu-dera. It was very pretty in the rain, although I got annoyed at being crammed together with a bunch of umbrellas while I waited to drink the water.

Afterwards, I enjoyed sampling yatsuhashi and walking back to civilization via Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, in the preservation district. Much less crowded than last time we were there, and the atmosphere was very nice in the rain and the ever-increasing darkness. Please enjoy walking with me down Ninen-zaka in this video!

And enjoy a few pictures of the temple and my walk there! It was nice not having to fight through a huge crowd of people this time!

We get you there with time to spare!

Greetings from rainy Kyoto! I have returned to Kansai for another little holiday. I had a much happier time getting here because this time I took the shinkansen! I didn't take the fastest one (although I want to try that one someday), but even the slower one got me here super fast. Three and a bit hours (compared to about 8 on the night bus). MAGICAL. It was super comfortable too! And I could see lots of scenery!

Tokyo's weather was lovely this morning, but it was raining when I got to Kyoto. I didn't really mind - I went to Gion before I checked into my hostel, and it lent the area a nice atmosphere - but then my umbrella broke. I didn't get too wet, as it wasn't raining that hard, but it was still annoying.

Tomorrow I will probably go to Osaka to enjoy takoyaki and other assorted delights (not just shopping like last time I was there).

Enjoy pictures of my legs and all the space they had, a little bit of the train, and some random scenery along the way.

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Baby Ariel, Odaiba, and RIDICULOUSNESS

Okay, here's a pic of my Baby Ariel bento box - 3 boxes, actually, of smaller and smaller size! I ask you, how could I possibly resist this triple dose of cuteness? めちゃかわいい！

Also, have some pics from Odaiba (the lovely view of Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower, and Statue of Liberty; a Halloween ad; proof that in Tokyo, the future is NOW; and the Fuji TV building). I was there the weekend before last and had a much happier time than the other time I was there. The weather was gorgeous! We thoroughly enjoyed spending the afternoon over there. To get there, we took a monorail which is a little expensive, but which is kind of worth the price because it feels like a ride! And you get crazy good views! Anyway, Odaiba! I want to spend more time there!

Finally, ridiculousness! I walked into Daiso yesterday and was greeted with an aisle of Christmas. DUDE. There is apparently nowhere in the world where I can get away from the unnecessarily early appearance of Christmas.

東京ディズニーシー

Yesterday was my birthday, and I spent it at DisneySea!

DISNEYSEA IS AMAZINGLY AWESOMELY AMAZING.

I have been known to complain about California Adventure, and DisneySea really made me realize exactly why, despite quite liking a couple rides, I hate that park. DisneySea is easy to get around and there is shade and places to sit and it's beautiful and there are a ton of amazing rides and every area has great atmosphere and even though it's completely different, every bit of it still feels like Disney. Most importantly, while you are there, you don't just wish you were next door at Disneyland; we completely forgot about Disneyland until some point late in the day when we were somewhere that was high enough to give us a glimpse of the castle and then it was like, "Oh, that's right, there's another park over there. Okay, let's get back to the awesomeness here!"

DisneySea's theme is nautical exploration, and there are seven ports of call: Mediterranean Harbor (the entrance area, very Italian), Mysterious Island (Jules Verne stuff), Mermaid Lagoon (Little Mermaid), Arabian Coast (Aladdin), Lost River Delta (Central American ruins), Port Discovery (the marina of the future!), and American Waterfront (Cape Cod and New York). There are a couple familiar rides - Indiana Jones is in Lost River Delta (the ride is pretty much the same, but the theme is Crystal Skull and not Forbidden Eye, so some visual things are slightly different) and Tower of Terror in American Waterfront (the ride bit is the same, but the overall experience and story line is completely different and AMAZINGLY AWESOME). Tower of Terror was probably my favorite ride. My favorite lands were Mysterious Island (it has two very cool rides - Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - and looks all awesome and steampunky) and Arabian Coast (it had a nice atmosphere! and it smelled like curry! and after going on Sinbad's Storybook Voyage I learned the important lesson that "your friendship is a treasure"!).

We managed 10 rides (Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull, Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster, Caravan Carousel, Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Raging Spirits, Tower of Terror, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Aquatopia, and StormRider) and I ate sea salt ice cream and a sesame churro and I got a Baby Ariel bento box (I will take a picture of it later - it is even cuter than you could imagine) and when we were on our way out we got a little lost and ended up trapped in Fortress Explorations, which has this fortress and ship that are full of interactive stuff (tubes to crawl through! cannons to set off! the chance to pretend you're the captain of a galleon!), and since the park was near to closing there were only a couple other people there, so we could spend our last bit of time running around on a ship and crawling through tubes and generally acting like kids. So, pretty much the best possible end to our day!

I wish I had pics from every land, but my batteries kind of died and also my camera is crap at night anyway, so...yeah. Enjoy what I do have though! I will definitely take pictures everywhere next time I go!