day trip to Osaka

So this morning I woke up early, walked to the Nagoya station, and took the Shinkansen to Osaka. I’m trying to avoid spending money, but I’m taking paid vacation for this situation, so I’ll be damned if I sit in the apartment all day glued to the TV.

I’ve always wanted to go to Osaka, so I departed at 7:30 AM, determined to do Osaka in a day.

On the way there, I looked up attractions on my iPhone. I got there at 8:30 and went to Namba station area first. Most of the stores were still closed, so I thought I’d go to the Hozenji shrine first.

I got lost ^^;; and finally found it around 10ish. There was this mysterious moss-covered statue in front of it, and I watched a few people do a ritual of throwing water over it. I did it, too! Kind of creepy-surreal.

I walked down the Shin sai Bashi street shopping area, and tried a bunch of different foods. I tried ika yaki, which was a cross between takoyaki, a crepe, and okonomiyaki. Excellent. Then I tried Takosen, which is two tako yaki (balls of fried octopus) in between this squid flavored rice cracker with sauce. SO GOOD.

A little kaiten zushi and Millet ginger flavored ice cream, and for breakfast, sakura mochi an sandwich. lol

After that, I wanted to go to the Ukiyoe museum, but it was all the way back near Hozenji (I’d walked for like 30 minutes in the opposite direction). Instead, I walked to Osaka castle and spent time there!

Then, I wanted to see Dotonburi bridge and got lost looking for it….OH I discovered something! If I hit “maps” on my iPhone, it would pinpoint my location and show me a map and I could find my way and the dot which was “me” would move!! Wow!!
Daniel: “Roxy, that’s GPS. That’s been around for a while…”
Roxy: “^^;; oh really?”

So I saw the Osaka history museum, which looked really cool from the outside and even cooler inside, but I’d reached my limit with museums and wanted to get going. I took a train and found it! And actually, I’d passed it on the way, but didn’t know THAT was Dotonbori. Lol

I took The Bullet train back to Nagoya at 5, reached it at 6, and met my co-worker/friend fellow Tokyo-ite Daniel! 😀 We had Denny’s and chatted. I found out that out of the 7 co-workers at my SY school, exactly ONE is still there teaching. Everyone else is taking a leave of absence. Other teachers must be covering lessons. I’m really curious which students feel alright enough to come in for lessons… I know a business can’t just lay down. My company must be hurting because I’m assuming almost all teachers are foreigners.

So it was so good to see a familiar face.
I got back to the apartment and Kris was leaving. I really made fast friends with him…I didn’t want him to go. @_@ I’m glad we met, and hopefully we can hang out in Tokyo again when everything settles down!

A friend called me from Omori and said that trains are running, the radiation levels are low, so there’s nothing to worry about. But he’s glad I’m enjoying myself, and am I coming back to Tokyo? Well… not yet, dude!

Thank you for your well wishes…but don’t pray for me. Pray for the people up north, and for the plant workers fighting for the lives of everyone around the world. I’m fine here so far.

I’m worried about my friends still in Tokyo.

I bought a spatula for the guys because theirs is shredding, and one of them called me “one bad-ass house guest.” 😀 …