why not hit up the downtown area?while on the way there, I saw everyone was wearing those cool masks to cover up diseases and whatnot. I just figured there were probably a lot of sick people walking around.
I took a train from Osaka station to umeda. in umeda, there is a big building there where you can go to the top onto an observation deck and get a view of the entire city and the surrounding area. they of course charged me a good price to get into that to enjoy the splendid beauty of the city from the sky.
if you look at this building, you can see two sets of escalators suspended in the air going from a lower floor of the building to the observation deck.
im pretty sure that every single one of japans large cities has one of these types of deals. they build a big tower, fill it with offices for businesses and whatnot, and they include a special thing on the top floor specifically to be an attraction to suckers, like me, who are visiting and simply cant resist the opportunity to sit on the top of a tall building and take pictures, lots and lots and lots of pictures.
so I was sitting at the top of this building, called the sky-biru, and I take lots and lots of pictures. for some reason, this area has some kind of a lovers theme.
I was there by myself, so I sat in the seats meant for two lovers all by myself, except for my imaginary girlfriend of course.
and that was that, on to bigger and better things.
Osaka castle is the biggest one I have ever seen in japan. it is surrounded by a big moat, like the castles in the old school knight stories and stuff. it was serious stuff.
of course when I got here I had to take a lot of pictures of it as well, but here are just a few for your viewing enjoyment.
and another
when I got to the side of the castle, I got to stand on the edge of this Cliffside type area and look down. hundreds of feet to a watery grave, or at least that’s what it seemed like, it was pretty high up there.
this couple here actually took his dog and held it over the edge the same way Michael Jackson might do one of his children.
I was horrified at this mans lack of consideration for this poor animal, but there was nothing I could do, the man spoke Japanese, I spoke English, and the dog did not speak at all.
more and more often, I kept seeing people wearing these masks. it seemed to me now that there were more people wearing them than not. I had no idea what was up but was guessing maybe it had to do with how I smelled or something. It couldn’t have been that I thought, ive showered most days and I usually use soap when I do it, and sometimes water.
I found a takoyaki man at the front of the castle. my chance had finally arrived to eat my favorite Japanese food from a legit takoyaki vendor.he was totally legitimate. he asked me how I wanted my takoyaki, what toppings I desired, and even let me take pictures of him making those delicious little balls with octopus tentacles in the middle.
they were a work or art and I was incredibly excited when he called my name. I went and grabbed my takoyaki, payed the man, and sat down.
Immediately following, a crazy bum came up and started talking to me. he was one of the grosser people I have seen during my trip and subsequently made me not want to eat my octopus balls. I got up and ran away from him, holding on tight to my balls as I ran as to not hurt them.
I found a safe spot and chowed down. oh they were good. they were better than good, they were great.
anyway, from there, I made my way back to old tim lins house, I was gonna take a nap before the fun of the evening. it was beginning to get dark.
then I noticed almost everyone was wearing a mask but me.
i got lost, but tim lin found me. he told me that there was an intense alert out because there had been an outbreak of swine flu, and just to make it better, it had been in the area I was hanging out in all day.
he also told me he hd the week of school off because of the swine flu outbreak, so he could stay up late and play with me when we got back to the house. we could even have a slumber party and sleep in if we wanted.
he forced me to wear a mask, we went and got some food and went to hide at his house until the whole thing would blow over.
we just sat around his house for the next five or six hours eating and dressing up and sleeping and doing our hair and talking about girls, you know, man stuff.
I talked to moniek on facebook and she mentioned that there was a sumo tournament going on in Tokyo and that I should go check it out. how could I possibly say no to that kind of an offer, so I told her I would be up at 5am to catch the shinkansen back to Tokyo, again, and meet her and some folks at the sumo arena at 9:30am.
seriously, sumo in Tokyo…how incredible is that stuff?
I told tim to wake me up at 5.
then we went to bed, just narrowly escaping the clutches of the swine flu.
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