Our final destination takes us to Japan where we hit the ground running. Not knowing what to expect after 3 months in South East Asia where most everybody speaks English and traveling is super easy, we were greeted by the weird and wacky yet sophisticated society of Japan. Once clearing customs and finding the train station, our eyes glaze over as we stare at the different train options to the city. Once we find the train we want we try to purchase our ticket to find out that our stop doesn’t exist…so back to the drawing board. Eventually a Japanese businessman points us in the right direction and we’re off.
Japanese hotels are funny things with midget doorways and highly sophisticated toilets. Godzilla (aka Jason) managed to maneuver the hotel obstacle course without any head trauma to find our room without a bed. Of course, not realizing we booked a Japanese style room, we found our futon mats tucked away in the closet, which is almost big enough to be a bed. Luckily we realized we weren’t supposed to sleep in the closet before we had a repeat of the movie, “Step Brothers.”
We’re fortunate to be able to meet up with Jackie, Jenny’s sister, while we were in Osaka. She showed us around the town, how to order food, and some interesting Japanese culture. Our first stop took us to downtown Osaka (Shinsaibashi and Dotonbori) where we shopped for accessories for the Cosplay festival the next day as well as dine at a miniature hibachi grill. The food was excellent; it was partially cooked before arriving at your table where you could finish grilling it to your perfection.
Later in the evening we headed to Hirakata where Jackie has been living to try an all you can eat Korean BBQ as well as some karaoke. We didn’t learn that “all you can eat/drink” in Japan translate to “all you can eat/drink in one hour” until we only had 15minutes left of our meal. Meat was flying as we loaded the grill with chicken, beef, pork, and heart (yes, we ate the heart of some animal). Once they pried the plates and mugs from our hands we went next door for karaoke. Being a large group and a few technical glitches in the system we didn’t get to sing too many songs; however, Jackie was accompanied by a random drunk Japanese student that stumbled into our room for some backup vocals.
No trip to Japan is complete without visiting a Cosplay (“costume play”) festival. Needless to say there were some strange people parading around as their favorite Japanese anime characters. There were numerous school girl outfits, a really scary fairy, a dog joined in the festival, and a random cat in a box pedaling down the street away from the festival; we still don’t know where that cat was headed.
After the cosplay we headed back to Hirakata for “all you can eat” gyoza, which we think is all a big fat lie. We went to this restaurant twice to find out that the special isn’t valid on weekends, holidays, and days that end in “y” in English. However, we are going to try it for a third time when we’re back in Kyoto because we are gluttons for punishment and they are REALLY good.
With only a few hours before having to head back to Osaka, we made our way to the Himeji Castle. However, we find hundreds of tourists and a 2 and a half hour queue to get through the fortress. Apparently, Japan celebrates the Vernal Equinox and since the Himeji castle will be closing in April for 4 years due to renovations everyone decided to visit it, Today. We hurriedly joined the queue of people as it winded all the way around the castle. Two hours later and barely in the door of the castle we had to head back to Osaka. It was a little disappointing; however, we did get to view the castle from the outside.
On the way back to the train station we found a scary samurai cutout.
Back in Osaka we decided to visit the Osaka castle…it seems as though every city has its own castle. Although not as impressive as the Himeji Castle, it was still a sight to behold. We didn’t tour the inside of the castle as we heard its best appreciated from the surrounding park.
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