Well, well...It has been about a month. Sorry about that, but there is nothing exciting in my life worth posting about. Until now.
Last weekend, Kim and I took advantage of some national holidays and went to Osaka!! Yay. This is the second time I have been to Osaka, and it was just as fabulous as the first time, except there was no Sarah to visit :( . We found some new things to do and also went back to a few of the places from last time. One such place that deserves more repeats in the future, Yogurtland!!
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| YOGURTLAND! Or...as it is now called, PartyLand. Either way, the best frozen yogurt. |
One new and really fun thing we did was go to the Instant Ramen Museum! It is not too big and clearly all the information is in Japanese, BUT you can pay 300 yen and make your own cup noodle! You get to decorate the cup and then choose flavors and toppings. Very fun. I am excited to eat mine, which I should make sure I actually do because I am prone to forgetting and then food goes bad. Anyway, it was fun.
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| my cup! |
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| of course I drew a giraffe! |
We stayed in Osaka for 4 days, so one day we took a trip to Kyoto. Only 30 minutes by train, so it is quite convneient. I finally got to see a few more of the famous temples and things in Kyoto. I want to take this moment to congratulate whoever designed the bus system in Kyoto. It is amazing. AND they have this wonderfully designed easy to read map. It is brilliant. Of course, there is traffic and the busses take time, but it is cheap and convenient and definitely my recommended way to travel around Kyoto. We went to see Kinkakuji which is a golden temple and Kiyomizudera which is up higher in the hills and looks over Kyoto. Walking up to Kiyomizudera, we went through Gion, one of the more famous Geisha areas of Kyoto, so there were lots of women in Kimono and we did even see a few geisha.
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| Me and Kinkakuji |
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| Kinkakuji without me. It's so glorious |
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| Gion...and geisha! |
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| Kiyomizudera |
Back in Osaka.... We also went to an observation tower called Tsutenkaku. It is in a cute area with lots of shops and such. You go up the tower and the views are pretty good (the tower is not exactly tall, but it's tall enough) but what is more important is the statue of Billiken. If you rub his feet, he brings you good luck! So, one foot rub and cheesy tourist shot later, we were ready to face the world with all our good luck.
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| There is the tower! |
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| Rubbing his feet!! |
What else did we do? Purikura (those photo booths where you get small stickers) and UFO catchers (aka claw machines). I got a few awesome things from claw machines but also had some moments of extreme frustration at the complete unfairness of certain set-ups in the machines. Some of them are impossible!!! Like these ones where if you knock a box down you get to pick a prize. However, the boxes are weighted and the claws are just not strong enough to move the box. grrrrrrrr. lots of money and 20 minutes of frustration for absolutely nothing. The good news is, at this one game center, one of the guys working there was really nice and he gave me a prize because I was trying so hard. I had gotten a few from the machine already (it was one where you have to line up a pole perfectly so it goes through a slot and pushes a box down), but there are 40 varieties and I wanted a specific one and could not get it. So he gave it to me! how nice!!!!!!
Once, in a train station we came across some awesome trick art!
Oh, yeah, we went to a concert, too. Tackey and Tsubasa, if you are wondering or care. It was fun.
Alright, that is all. We did not do anything so amazingly fantastic that it merits more than this much writing. But anyone reading, you got a few pictures out of the deal, so no complaining.
