The first stop on my trip was Osaka. Osaka is the 3rd biggest city after Tokyo and Yokohama, although considering Yokohama is rubbish it is the 2nd as far as I'm concerned. Me and Veri went on the night-bus, which meant I wouldn't sleep but that was fine as I was still jet-lagged after coming back from England. Even though it's too dark to read, I found that 8 hours went surprisingly quickly. My first impressions of the city weren't great- a very confusing train station and an empty street supposedly the main shopping street. The shops don't seem to open until 10 and luckily my first impressions were wrong. My friend had also told me that there isn't actually much to see in Osaka, more things to eat, which is where it gets the name "Kitchen of Japan."
Our hostel was in Ame-mura which is short for American Village. This is because there used to be shops after the war selling American clothes. Now it seems to be the cool bit of town. Big glasses are in, but their lenses are out as your false eyelashes will get mascara on them.
The colours are much brighter than those in Tokyo which was refreshing. The people were also a refreshing change-straight talking, passionate and easily wound up.
Along with pretty much everywhere in Japan, Osaka has a speciality food. In this case it is Okonomiyaki which I can only describe as a pancake/omelette with cabbage in it (and fish and shrimps if you like) topped off with brown sauce and mayonaise. It sounds nasty but it's really nice and cheap and easy to make.
Osaka is famous for a big crab shop which smells horrible (in my opinion) which has a big mechanical crab on the outside.
The other famous sight is Osaka-jo (castle.) This is is a reconstruction as it was probably destroyed either during civil war, WW2 or a fire, I can't remember what happened to which castle. This seems to have happened a lot in Japan. The reconstruction is complete with lift and wheelchair access which I'm sure the Shogun would have installed first time round if his architecht had spent a bit more time on his plans.
At the castle, we had a conversation with 2 Japanese secondary schoolgirls who were convinced that Veri is a model and that I am just like the real Harry Potter and or Spiderman. The castle was also where I first tried Osaka's other famous food- Takoyaki or bits of octopus in fried balls of batter. It was chewy and I burned my tongue so I won't have it again.
In fact, I was so pleased, I decided to milk it a bit:
We went to a nice shrine a short train ride away, which predates Chinese Buddhist influence which was interesting. I bought a charm for safe travel from there as it was pretty and it worked quite well for getting me back to the UK safely, although now that I read it again it is for safe boat travel haha.
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