Brother Annie

Our journey began on Christmas, even though it began on Christmas Eve for my Aussie friends. After saying good bye to my host family I took a train to Tennoji where I met up with Jace and Paul. The two of them walked me to our first hostel. Peace House Showa it was called, and in a rather dodgy looking part of town. All the houses were close together and rusty, but I really enjoyed it. Although there was one point when we were looking for a post office, and when we turned the corner, we saw a group of men in business suits standing on either side of a very expensive looking car. As one man got into the car, all the other men chanted a quick “Rei!” or something, and bowed. The first that popped into my head was HOLY SHIT ITS THE YAKUZA (the Japanese mob). We walked past that area again, and apparently it was just a “car wash”. Yeah. Car wash. There’s always some cover up.

The hostel was smaller than anything I’d ever stayed in before. Being budget-minded youngsters, we went for the cheapest option–the dormitory style rooms. My bed was basically a whole in the wall with a futon laid down. I shared my room with five other people, and it was pretty crowded. Jace and Paul had an even smaller room, so small you could hardly breathe. But in general, I liked it. It was still very Japanese, with tatami floors, sliding doors and weird toilets.

On Christmas we didn’t actually spend a ton of time in to Osaka. In the evening we headed back to Hirakata (the town where we go to school) to meet up with some of our Kansai Gaidai buddies to do hit up Toriki (a bar) and later some karaoke. It was a fantastic night, and a really fun sending off party (not REALLY for us, but whatever). I’m gonna miss Hirakata.

The Aussies and I had to head back early that night in order to catch a train back to Osaka, so around 10:30 we made our way back to our shack of a hostel and crashed. The next day started out nice and slow as we went in search of breakfast, right at the crack of noon. We landed for Subway. There I had my first taste of Melon Soda, and let me tell you: it tasted like diabetes, but in the best way possible.

Then we headed off for Den Den town. Den Den town is a street (around Ebisucho, or Nipponbashi in Osaka) lined with electronics, anime and porn stores. Paul had to buy an SD card which is why we hit it up. It was by far the nerdiest street I had ever walked.

After walking along for quite a while, we headed back to the hostel to take a rest before doing out to check out Shinsaibashi and grab dinner–at a middle eastern restaurant. So far we have had yet to eat some real Japanese food, but whatevsies. It’ll happen at some point. But this place was really good, they have really good pita sandwich things.

Unfortunately by the time we went to Shinsaibashi, most of the shops were closed, so we headed off to find our Glico friend. If you’ve every eaten a box of Pocky before, you know what Glico is, but perhaps you’ve not seen the man himself. I know I posted him once before, whatever. ALSO, this has nothing to do with the trip really, the bridge where you see the Glico sign and the giant Asahi DRY sign was in a manga I read a while ago (21st Century Boys, woot!). But check it out!

Annie was here

Anywho after a good night of awing at Osaka’s colorful night life, we headed back to the hostel to catch some Z’s. The next day would be a traveling day for our next two destinations: Hikone and Nagoya.