Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Osaka Castle

Well, tomorrow is the last day of Silver Week... wait??? REALLY!?! Yep... I thought today was Monday, too. Tomorrow is Wednesday and the last day of my 5 day vacation.

Saturday: I was suppose to go to the INFES party, but fell back asleep which is OK. I don't remember exactly what I did instead that day... oh well.

Sunday: I was suppose to go to Osaka with some friends but decided to go to Karaoke on my own and just stay in Hirakata. I bought 3 CDs, 2 which had bonus DVDs, for 750 yen at Book Off. It was a good day :)

Monday: I was lazy yet again. I was trying to find a place to get money when my guardian angel, Taka-san (yes, I shortened his name), took me to find an open ATM. Double riding his bicycle. I always wanted to do that :) And it went a lot of faster. So I got some grocery shopping done.

Today, I somehow fell back asleep and slept til 2 pm... waking and rushing out to meet Vanessa in Osaka. We were going to meet at Osaka Castle. The castle closed at 4:30 and because it takes me an hour at least to get there. Let me comment on the trains here in Osaka (yeah, you know this was coming).

This was the first time going on my own on the trains here. I've only ridden them once before too and that was with Kanako. All these Osaka people are always like "Amber, if you can navigate Tokyo, you can navigate Osaka, it's easier" !!!!! NO, IT'S NOT! There is like 5 different trains... the local, express, super express, limited express... and Osaka has thing not caring to have maps and English maps available for me to tote around! I navigate Tokyo good because I had a map for a long time... eventually it got embedded in my head. And the local train of course stops at all stops while the express trains... I don't even know the difference between them... if I had an English map, I probably could tell you. I guess some stop at some number of stops and the more faster the train the less stops it takes. So you have to make sure your train stops at your stop. Very complicated and confusing. Not easier than Tokyo.

But something I never saw in Tokyo... is a double decker train. In fact I stopped mid Japanese direction asking to go "OMG!" I made sure to ride in this car too. Just because.

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So yes, I did manage this by myself... taking the Keihan Line to Kyobashi, changing to the JR Line (WAIT! I STILL CANNOT USE MY PASMO HERE! Osaka is SOOO weird) where I rode to Morinomiyo. I met Vanessa and her friends from Nagayo at Osaka Castle. I got there 8 minutes before it closed so I just hung around the gift shop. I've made a note to go back there later.

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After resting, we decided to go to Osaka Tower. We stopped at the shrine, I gave some money, did a little prayer then bought a fortune. Mine was a so-so fortune... not sure, but I hung it on the tree anyways.

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So 2 subway stops later, switching lines, 3 stops later, we arrive to the Tower. The wait to tour the tower is 50 minutes. I've made a note to go back there too. We walk around, there are 3 Pachinkos at least in this area (Osaka... you guys have a bad addiction) and finally a small arcade with some purikura which we do. Supposedly there is no Purikura in Nagoya. The best Purikura I've been to was the one in Makino... with the monkey bars <3

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So after that, I headed back on my own... taking one subway line 3 stops, switching lines, going 2 stops. I get off the subway and notice... the escalator isn't moving... there is a train stopped with all the lights off O.O This isn't a power outage... I start worrying that it being a holiday maybe the trains stop running early... but at 7??? So panicking, I ran out the wrong exit... >.< So I go out exit 2 and ask a lady which direction the JR station was and walked in a heavy rain (good thing I grabbed my umbrella just in case this morning :D) by myself at dark. It was a little depressing. But I found it and everything was running so no worries.

I got by to Hirakata on my own a little early so I stopped at McDs for a fast dinner and went to Ring with Taka-san for Karaoke :) It was fun. We seem to sing the same types of songs too. I like singing with him. Ring is a bit expensive though. I kinda like my Smiley Karaoke better.

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