Ok so first stop of the big trip around Japan was Tennoji in Osaka.  This didn’t feel like such a big deal because it was just Osaka, except – Paul arrived.  So it was a big deal.  It was fun introducing Paul to Japan and attempt to fill him in on what’s to be expected – even taught him a few words.

Now i actually hadn’t been around the Tennoji district in Osaka much before, so it was a little new to me.  I had heard that Tennoji was a bit of a rough area, and it was true.  I’d describe it as the ghetto of Osaka, but it still had its nice parts.  It had character.

So on the first night, Paul and I checked into our hostel, “Peace House Showa”, which looked like a little Japanese house squished between actual Japanese houses.  Inside was small, and felt like a small Japanese home.  Paul and I were shown to our room, we dropped our stuff, then hit the streets for a bit of a walk around the local area.

We stopped by a little Ramen shop, which was really small, in fact all it had was 5 stools at a bar, and the shop itself was barely big enough to accomodate this.  Here I attempted to speak to the middle-age/oldish men who were baffled at the sight of 2 foreigners walking into this little ramen bar.  The conversation didn’t get far, but it did get SOMEWHERE… technically… ok my Japanese sucks lol

After dinner, we went to a combini, where we grabbed an onigiri and beers.  I opened my beer as Paul walked out of the combini, he spotted me and yelled “Oi! what are you doing? you wanna go to Jail or something?” … xD but of course, drinking in public is allowed here.  It took him a bit of getting used to lol

The next day we explored Tennoji a bit more, met up with Annie, hung out a bit, then headed into Hirakata to meet up with my Kansai Gaidai buddies for a big night at Toriki and Ring.  Toriki is a pretty popular place where everything they serve is 280 yen, including these like 1 litre beers! Ring is a cheapish place that has Karaoke and free soda (combined with a 1.25litre bottle of Johnny Walker = good times).  Twas a good night indeed, Paul had a lot of fun.

Our 3rd day of our time in Osaka was a bit of a shopping day.  We checked out Den Den Town and Shinsaibashi where we got to show Paul the big Glico man along Shinsaibashi-suji.

4th day we got up earlyish, and begun our trip to Hikone castle and eventually Nagoya… oh what a day…

Ciao for Now!