Day in Osaka

Osaka is a big city, known for its excellent nightlife and vivacity. Today I went with Smitty and Ikue to explore it by day!

First off, we traveled by train from Hirakata to Osaka; we even had to change train lines! Once we arrived in Osaka, we headed towards our major destination: the world-famous Osaka Aquarium.

But first we stopped for lunch where I had my very first okonomiyaki! Okonomiyaki is kinda like a latke, if you replaced the potatoes with cabbage and added a flour sauce (for those of you wondering, a latke is kinda like a pancake if you made it out of potatoes). People then put all sorts of sauces on their okonomiyaki. By a strange twist of fate, it turned out that the head chef and owner of the okonomiyaki restaurant had a daughter who went to Kansai Gaidai as well! And so, she treated us very nicely, giving us recommendations and everything! We each ordered an okonomiyaki and then shared it between the three of us.

Cheese

Sauce

Plain

Boss-lady!

Ikue, I, and Smitty/Rachel

After lunch, we headed to the aquarium. It was amazing. First off they had a show with their live raptors, called a “bird show.” It was awesome and made me slightly miss my job at the nature center. One of the birds decided to misbehave and run away during the exhibition. It was pretty funny.

The owl

That raptor that ran away

His replacement

The parrot

The biggest attraction at the aquarium (hereby now referred to as “Kaiyukan”) is something called a じんべさめ (jinbesame), better known in English as a “whale shark” a.k.a. a shark as big as a whale. The Japanese name refers to the spotted pattern on the shark’s hide; much like an everyday kimono coat pattern called jinbe. It was amazing. Basically, you go up an escalator and then slowly descend, seeing the various types of fish as you go deeper.

I took lots of pictures!

Pufferfish

Capybara

Sunfish

Jellyfish

Clownfish

Jellyfish

Turtle fis...wait...

After visiting Kaiyukan, we went around the shopping mall to do purikura! We had a fun time! Then we went on the gigantic Osaka Ferris Wheel.

There was a giant Stitch plushie in our car...

Thanks to Smitty for the pic!

Osaka

It was epic. But not as epic as what was to follow.

Finally, I found heaven. That’s right, I found the Studio Ghibli store. Oh my gawd, it is so amazing and fantastic and I’m so going to it again. Lookit what I got~!