Osaka, Himeji, and Kyushu! OH MY!
So we started out this morning in Kyoto at “K’s House Kyoto”, which is the youth hostel we stayed at last night. It was a really nice place and if you ever find yourself in Japan, I highly recommend looking up “K’s House”. There are several around the country. Yesterday we ate breakfast at the little place that is connected to it. We got to eat with a couple of girls from Europe. There was a polish girl named Agnishka, and a British girl named Isabel. I didn’t get the chance to take their picture, but they were fun to talk to. Apparently they don’t eat potatoes with breakfast in Europe.
Anyway, this morning we got on the train and headed towards Osaka. There we got a sort of day pass that included unlimited use of the Osaka subway system, as well as admission to the aquarium. The passes were 2400 yen. I checked at the aquarium, and adult admission there was 2000 yen each, so it was basically a ticket plus unlimited subway use for 400 yen. Pretty good deal. Would have been more worth it if we spent more time on the subway. There was also an enormous feris wheel right next the Aquarium. The largest I’d ever seen. We didn’t go on it, but it was certianly impressive.
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The Aquarium its self was five stories tall. The top story was dedicated to some above ground wildlife, and creatures that live in and out of water like penguins, otters and some sea birds. The lower levels were dedicated to more traditional aquarium dwellers. The main attractions to this aquarium are the spotted manta rays, the finless dolphins (no dorsal fin), and my favorite, the Whale Shark. That’s right, the biggest fish in the sea. These things grow to be like 60 feet long. The ones in the aquarium weren’t quite that big, but they were still impressive. They also had hammerhead sharks which I think are really awesome. I took a bunch of pictures, but it was dark in there and it was very crowded so I couldn’t always make the most of my camera’s settings. I think I got some prety good shots though. I also took a bunch of video which I am currently having problems uploading. I may have to wait until I get to the orchard to figure that stuff out.
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After the Aquarium, Dad and I had lunch at the nearby shopping center. Dad wanted something quick and simple, so we wound up getting subway. It was really crowded, so when I saw some other English speaking folk wandering around, I invited them over to sit with us. Turns out they were a Canadian girls school that was on a trip to Japan for their Japanese program. After lunch, Dad and I walked back to the subway, and made the connections to the train station. I want to take this time to mention that using the Japanese subway is really easy. It helps that I can read some of the Japanese characters. But they still make everything easy to understand for foreigners. Lots of big arrows, picture diagrams, and just simple alpha numeric labels. I’ve never been on an American subway, but I get the feeling that they aren’t as nice as this.
Once we got back to the train station, we got on a bullet train and went to Himeji so we could see Himeji Castle. The castle is set for a 3 year renovation, so we wanted to make it before the scaffolding went up. Fortunately we managed to do that. Sounds like the renovation will start full scale after the cherry blossoms are done. (Which is about 3 weeks from now) We got there close to closing time, so Dad and I had a rushed tour of the place. The castle and all the buildings and walls are painted white. It’s really a nice looking place. What amazes me most about these old Japanese castles is that they are built on stone bases that use no mortar what-so-ever. Just gravity and good engineering holding these things up. Oh and I suppose a lot of friction too. I don’t remember how many stories the main castle was, but we climbed many flights of steep stairs to get to the top. There was a cold breeze coming in through any windows that got opened up (tourists can open and close the windows as they walk around, which I thought was pretty cool of them to allow). The breeze was welcome after all those stairs. On the way back down I lost track of my dad in one of the rooms. I got ahead of him so I waited for a while in the shoe room. (We had to take off our shoes and carry them with us through the castle. No shoes on Japanese floors. It was nice to get my boots off for a while though.) The problem was, Dad though I was behind him, so he was waiting for me. We wound up waiting for each other for quite a while. I was less patient then him, figuring at worst we would meet up at the castles single exit. So I continued on and wound up having an ice cream cone from a vending machine at the exit while I waited for dad. He took a while, but he found a cool Russian guy to talk to named Roman. Roman is studying at a Japanese university. He walked with us to the train station, but we were taking separate trains, so we had to say good bye. We exchanged email addresses though. Hopefully I’ll be able to meet up with him again at some point during my stay.
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Once we made it back to the train station and got our packs, we headed up to the tracks where a train was just boarding. Rather than just hopping on like dad wanted to, I decided we should ask and make sure we had the right one, since we couldn’t find the trains destination on the map. Turns out its destination was exactly where we wanted to go. And what’s more that train was basically empty. So instead we had to wait for the next train that was half the size and packed to the brim. Dad and I didn’t even have a seat until after the second stop. (About 40 min.) So that one was my fault. We wound up being so tired that dad decided we should get off early and grab a hotel, which is where I write this from now. I don’t even know the name of the town we are in. it is defiantly not a tourist destination though. The hotel seems more business oriented. From what I gather, not many tourists make it this far south. I know we are on the southern tip of Honshu. For those of you who don’t know a think about Japanese geography, we are right above the tiny gap between the southern most large island and the main land mass that makes up Japan. (I also know very little about Japanese geography, so that description may not be too accurate.) At any rate, we are in this business hotel and its past my bed time (22:02 local time. Or 10:02 pm) Due to a communication error, Dad and I wound up with our own rooms. Not the worst thing that could happen out of a communication error at a hotel I suppose. So yeah, I’m gonna save this entry, run spell check, save again and then go to bed. I’ll probably end up posting it in the morning once my video uploads are done.
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