| Hey guys and girls How is everyone doing? well first off, this entry is dedicated to my recent trip to Kyoto and Osaka. I went on this trip with one of my good friend from 4/14 to 4/18. And i know you all are saying, did you take any pictures this time? well, i did! i actually bought a camera just for this trip and it was also time to do so. I recently bought the Sony DSC 120w camera and it was great! Very simple and easy to use and great picture quality. Very user friendly and really cheap too! but enough about my camera, time to blog about my trip. Day 1 (monday): I met up with my friend, lets call her Special K, at the Haneda Airport around 11 am. From there, we took an hour flight to Osaka Itami airport which was really cheap btw, 20200 Yen which is about 200 USD. However, this ticket is non refundable and has a cancelation charge of 50% of the ticket according to ANA airways and the very "helpful" Ms. Nishimura. Thanks! haha Anyways, so after we arrived at the airport, we took the train to Osaka and checked in our awesome hotel, CITY PLAZA hotel. This place was really nice and really cheap too! it was about 15 minutes away from downtown Osaka, but the price was amazing. The place had a hotspring/bath for guys and girls on the 14th floor and was fucking relaxing! Thanks Special K for finding the deal ne. I would post pictures of the hotel but the files are about 2 mb each so instead, ill show everyone when i get go back to the states for my bros wedding in August. Also, our room number was 911! haha when will i ever get a room number 911, that was funny as hell ahha Ok so after checking in the hotel, we went to go eat this egg/noodle/brown sauce round pancake thing that Osaka is known for. Super oishi! what does oishi mean? well my friends, it means delicious in Japanese. (yes im picking up on some Japanese out here). After that, we went to go eat some dessert at this yogurt place, it was ok and was ok. Oh and Special K and I had a conversation about whether to order "cold hot chocolate" or hot hot chocolate.." yes, im not sure which one to order ne... haha after that, we went to the hip and happening part of Osaka (where a river runs through the city) and shopped and walked around! We rented a dog (kee-kun) that didnt like us too much for an hour. It was pretty cool, you can actually rent a dog and walk him around! It was really fun actually. After that, we had some Octopus ball things with Osakas famous brown sauce. It wasnt really crispy like i thought it would but soggy but still oishi. After that, we went to a place that represented OLD OSAKA back in the old days in Japan. This place was inside a building and really cool! Very nice area i would say. After that we went to Donkeyhoday, or something like that in Japan and picked up some snacks and plum sake! After that, we called it a night and relaxed. DAY 2 (Tuesday): KYOTO. This day was really awesome! We took a train to Kyoto which took about 30 minutes. After that, we went to a Kimono store and dressed up in Kimonos for the day! It was well worth the price even though at first i thought it was kind of weird, but it was really fun! We went to visit two temples and nice sight seeing places. Kyoto is absolutely beautiful and a wonderful place to relax and see the countryside of Japan. At the temples, people kept taking pictures of us, but i think they really wanted to take pictures of Special K since she looked gorgeous in her pink flower Kimono. Very pretty ne. We also ate some green tea jelly dipped in peanut powder which was really good too as well. Took a lot of pictures and walked a lot! After that, we headed back to Osaka and just chilled at the hotel room. Im actually not sure what else we did that night after Kyoto, but all i got to say was i got to see kyoto in 1 day! it was awesome. We went to this store called black paint but it was closed at 530pm! what store closes at 530 pm! lol... This day was just a lot of pictures and sight seeing. Very tiring. After heading back to Osaka, we ate dinner at this korean bbq place which was soso but awesome view on the 30th floor of a department buidling. Went back to the hotel room and chilled Day 3: (weds) This day was probably the most relaxing day of all. In the morning, we went to a seafood market where we ate delicious croquettes and good ramen. Also, i bought a box of strawberries to eat. Very oishi! After that we went to get haircuts at this place called Rugdoze! Special K's old hair stylist moved to Osaka this past year and opened up a shop over there! I got a massage and a really cool haircut. Plus we got discounts and free gifts! I was too cheap to buy the hairwax and now my hair doesnt look anything like the way the guy cut it.. haha... Special K's hair turned out amazing! This guy is truly talented and its a nice small coozy salon. here is a website picture he posted of us online on his website. http://rugdoze.blog.ocn.ne.jp/ At night, we shopped around Osaka and Shinsaibashi area and met up with Special K and her friend Kimiko. While we waited for her, there was this karaeoke competition going outside where random ass people just sign up and sing to a massive crowd! This is pretty daring for people but a lot of people were singing! Some people were good and some people were bad, but all in all, they were good! Ok the night started to get interesting when we met up with Kimiko. We had dinner at a nice, small seafood restaurant. The guy was giving us free seafood b/c we were all fighting over who gets to eat what! It was a really nice place to eat and very dim and nice atmosphere. It was quite pricey but very oishi. I had 3 beers during dinner and started to get drunk haha. After that we hit up a bar called Charlie Brown. I think its from the cartoon Charlie Brown, but there, man oh man, we all got pretty drunk! What started with a beer, led to 2 gin and tonics, a drink shot called "suprise" which was fucking pretty strong, then a cowboy shot, then pictures with flowers and umbrellas in my hair, then me not rememeber the rest of the night. Apparently i blacked out that night b/c i dont remember how i got home and ended up in bed. I also thought i lost my credit card but the whole time it was in the slot where you put the hotel room key to light up the room. I felt really stupid but i was still drunk in the morning! haha thanks Special K for taking care of drunk ass jimmy haha That bar was really cool and really fun! i havent got drunk like that in a long time. Day 4(Thursday): This day was the day Special K and i left osaka and back to Tokyo! sad! We had a mini lunch at this Gyoza city world which was ok. Then after that, we visited Special K's grandma in a suburban area. Her grandma was really sweet offering us tea and snacks. I didnt say much for an hour since i dont speak Japanese and they were conversing in Japanese. After that, we went to this newly opened Italian restaraunt that has a flare of Japanese flavors to it! The service was ok but the staff was really friendly. The food, omg, was really delicious! They also gave us a small dessert gift to go. After that, we went to the airport and went back to Tokyo! Had dinner at this place in Ueno called Dining room (soso) and then chilled at an internet cafe. After that, we departed and took 2 hours to get back to Yokosuka Navel Air base. I hate the stupid cab systems around Yokosuka! i walked in the pouring rain to go home sigh.. oh wells. Overall, this trip was a nice relaxing break from work. It was the first time i spent a long period of time with Special K and i thank her so much for showing me around Osaka and Kyoto! I had lots of fun! I have 812 pictures to prove it too! I dont want to go back to work, but hey, we all gotta go back to reality and work. Thank you so much Special K! I really appreciate everything! This trip was really fun and i also thought a lot about things. All in all, i think things will be great going on into the future. ok this was probably the longest entry i ever written on Xanga, but i remmeber everything so clearly b/c this was a really relaxing and enjoyable trip. Also, no pictures will be posted since file sizes are big but if you want to see any, wait till august or chat with me online! take cares all and vacation time is over, back to work.. no!!!!! |
