Osaka, Japan - Day 1

I had a weird thought on the train today. What if everyone in the train car suddenly burst into song and sang Paradise by the Dashboard Light with me. That'd be cool. That song was on at the time.

I made it to Osaka, but just about died of exhaustion while trying to find my hotel. All my bags combined are a good 100+ pounds. It sucks.
Wish I brought the bag with wheels.
Anyway, I eventually found my hotel. (Naturally, otherwise how else would I be posting this? HMMMMM?)

I got into my hotel room and dropped off all my stuff, sat down and scimmed through my Japan guide book (excellent book, by the way) to decide what I'm gonna do today.

I Know! I'll go see the Umeda Sky Building: a futuristic looking building that gives you a view of the whole city and an excellent sunset.

I started off by unloading my backpack a bit (My bed is currently full of random stuff that was weighing it down) and set off toward the building.

(By the way, I'm wearing my Looking for Japanese Girlfriend shirt today)


I've gotten a lot of looks, a lot of smiles, a lot of laughs.
Funny Shirt Guy strikes again!!!!

Anywho, I got to the Umeda Sky Building and saw a pretty cool fountain in front of it:


When I came back down, there were colored lights on it, but they were shut off before I could get a picture. :(

When you look up, you see this:


I went inside, got a ticket (700Yen), and headed up.
It starts off in a windowed elevator that goes up 35 stories I think. No pics.

After that, there's an escalator that goes up another 5 stories.


Finally I got to the top and had an AMAZING view of Osaka



I tried combining these three pictures to make a panorama view, but it didn't work out, they were uneven.

Nice shot of the river.


And the city


I stayed around until sunset to get some cool shots. I got a picture of everyone taking a picture


And then the sunset








More shots of the city




While I was up there I met a nice girl named Naomi. But she was 23. Little old for me :P But she was real nice.

It was dark when I got back to the bottom. Here's a shot of the building then:


Oooh, cool.


I headed back and took a shortcut through a shopping mall that was in the train station. I found a computer store. It was HUGE:


I got back to my hotel and dropped off my camera and backpack and went out to eat. I had a Panini. It was a panini in my butt. Ha, no, just kidding, had to say that, though.

Afterwards, it was around 9 o'clock, I strolled through some of the side streets with a bunch of stores and neon lights and stuff.
I found a pet shop. "I love pets" I thought to myself, so I went in.
All the animals looked miserable. They were all in small glass cages with a sheet of newspaper. Some had food, some didn't. Poor things.
There were six cages with little kittens in them maybe 3 or 4 months old. Total, utter cuteness. But they looked so bored.
So I bought them all a little mouse toy to play with.
I figure it'll keep them from being bored and they'll look so insanely cute while playing that it will increase their chances of someone buying them and taking them to a better home.

I left and came back an hour later or so and they were still going nuts. I felt happy.


Well, that's all I have for today.
I leave Osaka on Sunday.
Tomorrow I'm thinking about going to Universal Studios theme park and HAVING FUN!
I've been walking around everywhere, kinda getting sore.

This is Tony, over and out: