Our day today was dominated by the enigmatic figure Yusuke. He lives in Japan, and came to Canada briefly in an exchange program with Matt, which is when I first met him.
Our first destination was Osaka Castle. The first thing I noticed about it was that it had extremely nice gardens. There were a host of sellers with flowers, trees, and other plants (with extremely reasonable prices). There were a host of trees in the area, which were seemingly sculpted into a desired shape.
The scenery was incredible, including both the natural and man-made portions of the castle. The fortress' defences were impressive, including several moats and high walls.
A map of the castle grounds. View at full size to see the details.
The castle walls. These were just the outer walls, and additional defences lie behind them.
Additional defences behind the walls.
We approach the actual castle.
The actual contents of the castle paled (in my mind anyway) to the beauty surrounding it. Its contents were mostly about historical trivia and cultural information. Unfortunately, most of the best of it were not allowed to be photographed.
The view on the uppermost floor made up for this in spades however, as it gave a great view of the surrounding countryside.
A view of the area surrounding the castle.
A golden decoration on the roof of the castle. These were what those lego fishes were supposed to be (for those of you who know what I'm talking about, for everyone else, just enjoy the picture)
Afterwards, we had lunch; and as I wandered off to find something vegetarian, I was joined by Bramwell and then we met a Japanese man named Takashi Saito who we talked with.
He was very nice, and gave us some origami dinosaurs and a bookmark, and showed us to the other side of a pond, which exposed a magnificent view.
I really like this picture. Thanks Takashi.
We helped him edit a letter he was writing to his German friend. It was a very unique experience to say the least.
After Osaka Castle, we went to Namba. It is the downtown of southern Osaka, and had an impressive selection of things to see and do. We went to "America Town" and walked around there. It was fairly interesting, one thing I saw (but did not take a picture of) was a store called "Brown Sugar", with a black man working there, who was among the darkest of individuals I have ever seen.
Two interesting things in Namba: the first anime-decalled car we've seen in Japan; and some hilarious Engrish. "What does she want? Yes! Asian Cyber-Style" I am probably robbing Matt of a future Sign of the Day, but this is too awesome to leave you all waiting for it.
Also, a sign for what I believe was another One Piece store. OP seems to be the most popular anime/manga by far based on what I've seen so far. I think the sign is for pictures or a picture booth, for 300 yen. I mostly just liked the Chopper on this one.
We had sushi, which Yusuke bought for us (he really is too nice). We then went to an arcade, where we got to see his true power.
An anecdote about this: when Yusuke first came to Canada, he played a game of Rock Band with Matt and his friends. This was the first time he had ever played Rock Band. He played on the hardest difficulty, and utterly rocked the faces off of everyone.
He is playing at 5x speed, and doesn't miss a beat.
Afterwards, we went and sang some karaoke. They had an impressive selection, including both English and Japanese titles (probably Korean and Chinese as well, but we didn't actually look for any of those). We booked an hour, thinking that would be plenty of time, but the time melted away faster than any of us realized it would.
We all had a great time. We will probably see Yusuke again when we are in Kyoto.
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