Chibified

I went to visit Osaka Castle, aka Ozakajo, the next day, the construction was ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It was interesting to see something that was constructed during the time samurai and damiyo existed, btw it was reconstructed after being bombed in WWII, in the middle of the business district. But the inside of the castle was made up to look like a museum and nothing looked like a castle at all inside. Something that I thought was really cool though was projected images of actors acting out the time during Hideyoshi’s life as I have never seen that before. The view from the top is great and the park around it is real nice as well, though it would have been nicer when the cherry blossoms bloomed. If you really want to understand and see a small part of Japanese history, I would advise you to visit.

This was a nice shrine I believe in the park. The park is real nice to walk around and you can see people fishing along the river banks. I would like to know what it says on the shrine though, so if anyone knows please comment.

Osaka Castle from different views. Btw, this was the first day I seen blue sky while in Japan lol, for two days it was all cloudy due to the rainy season.

This was a cool looking re-enactment of a battle that came from the painted background that I found inside of the castle, btw they don’t allow you to take pics on the 3rd and 4th floor.

I believe these were the mon/crest and symbols of Hideyoshi, very nice.

The view from the top, I felt so…mighty lol. Now imagine seeing mostly green from this view and not grey. Before modernization it was full of trees, grass, plants, and villages…

This was a temple next to the castle that felt very historical to walk around, though they were probably reconstructed as well.

I believe this is Hideyoshi himself, I might be wrong so please correct me if you know through comments. It is a real nice statue though.

On the second day I went to Osaka Aquarium KAIYUKAN and Deer Park in Nara. Osaka Aquarium is a nice way to spend around half a day in. There were a bunch of animals I’ve never seen before including a whale shark, Japanese crab, some gigantic fish, and other animals. There was a big shopping center next to the aquarium that included an arcade where I won my first UFO crane game prize in Japan. There were a lot of things to buy in the shopping center and worth checking out. After the aquarium I took the train to Deer Park which is actually full of deer, both male and female. The deer just roam around in the park and eat grass if some person, like me, doesn’t feed them. It was really cool feeding the deer, although they can be a bit aggressive so I suggest people who feed them be at least 5’6″; for I am 5’9″ and those deer horns went up to my lower chest where they prodded me lol. It was interesting being harassed by deer, for I just pulled out my wallet to get 150 yen for some deer food when they swarmed me and started poking me lol, not an experience I will soon forget. They are really tame and won’t tackle you based on my experience and once I showed them I had no food left they left me lol, talk about eat and run. There are a few pagodas and temples around the area so its nice to walk around before you head back home/hotel.

I also visited Namba in the morning, nothing happens in the morning lol, got to see some gigantic seafood though

This was pretty lol, a manhole cover so nicely decorated

Not some section in a bookstore like in America, the manga here covers wall to wall; games as well

I picked up the delicious melon pan at a bakery before we went to the aquarium. It was huge and it actually tasted like a melon and was delicious. The top had sugar baked right on top of it and had a nice color to it, now I know why Shana really loves it so much ^^.

The Osaka Aquarium

A bunch of water related animals including….duh…duh…dadah a whale shark

The next few pics are in the shopping center, the one right below is a ninja shop…a ninja shop ^-^. So of course they had a bunch of Naruto stuff but they also had katana’s, throwing starts, ninja wear, and more. There was even a ninja star throwing area where you can throw a few ninja stars for 300 yen

This is cool and unexpected, Nodame’s bag actually exists ^-^. I would have so got one if I was a girl lol.

I won this little guy at the arcade, kawaii

Pagoda’s and temples are in the Deer Park, not something to miss out on

Those funny harassing deer lol

Here I am feeding the deer, kawaii

This is what comes out of the deer and you can buy and eat it lol

Hey everyone, I’m back. Japan was very well…SUGOI LOL. My previous post about being in Japan was only about staying in the Kansai Airport, but now I actually explored Japan. It’s an otaku’s dream to go to the land of kawaii, bikes, anime, butt-washing toilets, and more ^-^. I visited the Kansai area of Japan which isn’t Tokyo but sugoi anyways. I had a lot of fun going to different place, surrounded by what else…Japanese people ^-^. I’m Asian so no one took two glances at me and assumed I was Japanese. Well on to the post. Today I will talk about where I stayed in Japan which is Minami Morimachi, Umeda in Osaka, say that five times fast lol. It was a nice town that didn’t have that hustle and bustle feel of Tokyo which I liked, but the downside was everything was practically Konbinis (convenience stores), restaurants, and business offices; only one extremely long street had shops to buy stuff. If you want to stay in a shopping district of Osaka, I would suggest Umeda itself or Namba which is filled with shops and restaurants that take more than a whole day to see everything, though you probably want to shop around 10 am as most stores don’t open until around that time.

Here’s a nice view from the street of Minami Morimachi

There was a nice supermarket by my hotel that had a ton of food, including bentos ranging from Omrice (rice inside an omelette) worth 380 yen to huge bentos around 1000 yen. But what really floored me was the melon prices..crazy, plus the shape lol

I love curry so all of this curry made me faint, j/k ;p

No Japanese supermarket can go without toy and candy boxes…didn’t buy one though b/c I didn’t want to spend everything on the first day lol

Check out this piece of marbled meat…made me drool, unfortunately my hotel room doesn’t come with a stove, it would probably take up 1/5 of the room anyways lol

Based on Anjali’s review and Brent’s review, I decided to head out to the local konbini’s to find what they deemed as good konbini food. I went through over 15 different Konbini’s in the pouring rain (it took me 30 min. to dry my shoes with a hair dryer to soggy level when I went back to the hotel, it was that bad) to find something truly unique thats only in Japan and I found it, a uji-kintoki popsicle. It was super sugoi, the top is filled with a condensed sweet milk, matcha flavored ice with azuki beans, and a nice creamy outside. Heaven on Earth, the nice crunch from the ice and texture of the azuki beans was to die for. I highly recommend those in Japan or will visit Japan to go to your local konbini and find it if you can, out of all the stores I went only one had it.

If you go to Japan you will notice that it’s full of vending machines, drinks being the most popular. I also saw cup noodles, ice cream, and used panties (I actually found the used panties, though technically it was in a gatchabon machine). But this was sugoi, mango which is my favorite fruit in drink form, it had Snoopy and Woodstock on the label and cap, and it was only 100 yen…SUGOI. It actually tasted like really sweet mango which I loved.

I thought this was neat, a Mainichi News station. I like their site so it was intersting to see the actual hq.

I believe this is a cicada bug, these little guys made the loudest buzzing sound every morning, which I liked but it annoyed my brother lol.

This is my hotel room…its ummmm…economical lol. I only slept in the room so it wasn’t half bad. The tv only had 12 channels and all in Japanese, most of the time it showed sports like sumo wrestling, soccer, and baseball. The anime was interesting as it was all in Japanese with English no subtitles lol, for some reason I didn’t need it though and understood what they were talking about most of the time. The bathroom was nice, especially the toilet…you know…the kind that shoots water up my butt to clean it…it was interesting…you have to experience yourself. I wouldn’t mind getting one of the toilets for myself

This was interesting, if I don’t close my door during a hot shower the fire alarm goes off…