First trip to Osaka

Wednesday of this week was a national holiday. Spring equinox day. Japan has some great holidays, I get off work for a day because its the equinox??? Anyway it was a good excuse to head to Osaka for the day.

Here is a map of the Osaka subway system. Looking at it seriously makes me want to die, possibly the most complicated thing I've ever seen. I honestly think a book on how to perform open heart surgery would be easier to navigate than this thing. Luckily I had an experienced gaijin (foreigner) guiding me thru the maze.



Here is my first view of Osaka. Tons of people walking around small alley's with people yelling Japanese phrases that I have no idea what they mean. Yelling is very popular here...



This is a shrine or temple we stumbled across on the way to the Apple store. Pretty cool really, your in the middle of a downtown business district and you find architecture like this. Japan is very good about keeping their history alive. At least thats what I've gather in my 3rd day here.

This is inside the shine. These were some wooden ladell looking things with water inside.


Rock garden inside the shrine.

Gateway to some other building inside the shrine. I have no idea what this shrine was for, but my friend said they make shrines for all kind of things like good luck or peace etc...

A bunch of pieces of handwritten paper tied to this wood structure. I'm not even going to speculate on what this means...

This is a place called Amerika-mura. Its supposed to be like a Americaville (similar to how we have Chinatown). Well I was the only American I saw so I don't think its really a place where Americans hang out. Still interesting to see what they think America is supposed to look like.

This is the Ill store in Amerika-mura. By Ill I guess they mean cool.

This is the part of Osaka along the main river that runs into the Pacific. I took a picture at night (which is down below).
This is a huge crab thats arms move back and forth. Apparently its a huge landmark so I took a picture. I wasn't really that impressed...

More pictures of huge crowds with neon advertisements blaring loud voices from Japanese commercials. Believe it or not the sound of this scene is more shocking than the picture.


Osaka at night. More neon lights than Vegas. At least it seemed that way.






All in all great trip. I'm terrified to try to go to the city alone. I got lost in my town of about 300k people. I can't imagine trying to find my way around Osaka.