We drove to a place where we could get free parking (her mom is crafty like that) and then walked to the train station. Heres a few street pictures and the handy vending machine we bought are tickets from.
Next was on to the train. Little of interest to report so here is some more train pictures.
Interesting point in the last couple pictures, you can see the little cemeteries. So far in Japan I have never seen anything like we do in Canada. Usually in Canada theres a big area, fenced off and rather park like. Here they are all squeezed between buildings, houses, restaurants and train tracks! Its very strange. It changes a bit in the countryside as you will see in later posts, but in the cities its always like this.
After getting downtown and off the train to try and find my friends I learned that 1 of them had bailed on us. That was lame. So me and my other friend, after saying goodbye to Naomi and her mom went and had lunch at a sushi place. I was to busy chatting away and totally forgot to take any pictures. However there was nothing exotic, basically the same as I had before!
The friend who bailed was the one who new this city well too, so both of us had no idea what to do so after going to a tourist info booth (first time seeing so many whities in one spot since Canada) we headed to a huge shopping mall. The first thing I was greeted with was this big smiling guy.
It was freaking huge. Not sure why this choice of decoration, but it was cool.
Clearly this mall was designed for women, as it had 4 floors of nothing but shops for women. 1 floor of mens and then 1 floor of half men and half women. Then 1 more floor was a huge game center. For some reason the Japanese seem to love UFO catchers as about half the place was just those.
After walking around a bit we met up again with Naomi and her mom and decided to all take a trip to Dotonbori (a famous area of Osaka) so jumped on the subway for a quick ride over there. Once we got out I started snapping photos again.
*Note the Fish and Chips*
After about 10minutes or so we found the area we were looking for. Its a huge shopping area that we couldn't even hope to see all of. I will let the pictures do the talking.
We probably spent a good few hours walking around this place. I cant express enough the size of this place. In this next picture you see a long tunnel full of people. That goes on for blocks and blocks and is nothing but stores on all sides. Its insane.
There is a ton to see here and if you have the money, a ton to buy! We mostly just did a ton of window shopping. No clue how far down we walked but it took a long time to get back. Here is a few pictures along the way.
Unfortunately the pictures here don't even begin to show how big this place is. It was hard to get a good wide shot of the place since its just a never ending sea of people.
This is an interesting one. A Krispy Kreme doughnuts shop (American Tim Hortons). Check out the lineup!!!
We did a bit more looking around in a mall, where I found this lovely named store.
As we were heading back I saw some ladies dressed up kimonos. Haven't seen a lot of that so far actually so snapped a picture.
Heading to the train station we saw a bunch of police up to something. Looked like there was a bag left randomly near the road. Ever since the Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, Japan takes these things rather seriously.
Once back at the train station we said goodbye to my friend and headed for our train. I saw this neat little coffee shop that gave me a nice reminder of home.
We all grabbed a bit of sleep on the train home while we thought about what to eat.
In the end we decided to get Okonomiyaki. It is a Japanese pancake..basically. It varies a bit by region but is basically the same idea. Batter, mixed with cabbage or other veggies with meat and sauces on top. You usually add whatever you want really, there is no wrong ingredients!
Here is a couple pictures of the place we went to.
Mines main ingredients were squid and pork. It was really good. A staff member comes and cook it for you at your table also. Heres a few pictures of it in progress and after.
We snuck a picture of this guys one who was sitting near us. It has a layer of Yakisoba in it too (like spaghetti).
After that it was home to rest some very tired legs. I had a blast and Naomi and I will probably go back again ourselves later hopefully.
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