Day 60

After a very long day in Osaka I woke at 08:00 to the sound of my alarm clock. The Spanish boys had safely made it back to the hostel which was a relief. I worry you know? And, as I had said to Jonna, they didn't make their beds, they just fell on them and fell asleep. I had considered making the beds for them but Jonna said not to because I'm not their mother and shouldn't have to do things like that for people. but I felt bad for the people in the hostel but then laziness or maybe tiredness crept in and I didn't do the beds. Though in hindsight I guess I should have.

One of the things we'd talked about the night before was going on the roof of the hostel. People just don't do that in the UK but it's pretty common here to have a roof terrace so when I knew there was one in the hostel I had to go up there. Especially as my guesthouse doesn't have one and we can't get on the roof at school. the only problem about going up the night before was the rain. Yes rain again but then we are smack bang in the middle of rainy season in Japan so I guess it figures. Oh crap, I just had a thought about taking an umbrella to Korea. They wont let me take it on the plane as hand luggage will they? Crap. Anyway, I digress, so we wanted to go on the roof but it was raining. Breakfast on the roof instead? With doughnuts and coffee? Hell yeah! So once we were up and showered and whatnot we popped to Mister Doughnut again, made some tea and coffee and headed up to the roof. It was soaking wet up there but Jonna spotted a cloth so I wiped down a table and some chairs so we could sit and enjoy our unhealthy breakfast and admire the not so great view. I wish I had a roof terrace ;_;

And then we were off! No getting lost today! First stop of the day was Nara. With walking from the hostel and trains and things it took about an hour and a half to get there. Nara is a small place just outside Osaka famous for wild deer wandering around and a giant Buddha with a funky haircut. Seriously. When we arrived a woman gave us a map and told us where to go so we decided to follow her advise and headed off. Within 5 minutes of leaving the station we started to see the deer. They were fabulous. Dozens of the little buggers. There were people selling deer food for 150 yen but I thought I'd leave that until later. During our tour around Nara park we saw lots of shrines and temples and buildings. Really pretty place. Saw a 5 story pagoda which is apparently the second largest in Japan. Lots of souvenirs but I decided against buying anything. The only thing that really caught my eye was a deer hat that I would probably never wear or a toy deer which Elphaba would have ended up eating so I just bought a couple of postcards.

While I didn't buy souvenirs I did buy some of those deer biscuits on the way back. Even before I'd bought them the evil deer knew what was going on. They wait for you and then ATTACK! I had all these deer standing around me trying to steal the biscuits, ramming me with their heads, biting my bag and jacket and trying to eat the map in my back pocket. It was super scary and brilliant fun. Poor Jonna bought some too and decided running away from the deer was a good idea but they just ran after her. It was hilarious. Nara is the best place. If you're in Japan you have to go, just to feed the evil deer.

There was supposedly a place in Nara that sold sake ice cream but we were getting tired and needed food and a rest so gave up looking for it and went to catch the train back to Osaka. It was on this train ride that I fully realised how f***ed up the people in Osaka are. It's like they had this group of people and they took all the pretty, smart, thin and useful ones and put them in Tokyo and took all the crap that was left and threw it at Osaka. Compared to Tokyo the people in Osaka are fat, ugly, freakish, have no fashion sense whatsoever, talk strange, do everything backwards and have absolutely no shame in any of this. The maps are all upside down or backwards, they stand on the wrong side of the escalator, the men walk around with women's handbags. I saw more ganguro girls in those 2 days than I've seen in 2 months in Tokyo. Major crazy town. On this occasion on the train I saw a person in very high heeled boots and some open sided hot pants. Totally looked like a girl until you look above the shoulders and it's an old guy with old guy hair and no make up or anything. Kinda reminded me of those sketch shows where the newsreader sits behind his desk and when he stands up he has no pants. If you were to just look at one half of this guy you'd never know what the other half was doing. I love you Osaka, you're so messed up :)

When we arrived back in Osaka we decided to go straight down to the sea side area. This is the area where the aquarium is. The aquarium was a little too pricey for us (especially as I've been in there before) so we decided to just look around and have a look through the shopping mall. Saw the Crocs shop (why do people buy these things? WHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!????!!), cute music boxes, lots of handbags, Totoro goodies and many other nice things. Bought a pair of cool greenish sunglasses and some frog hair bobbles. Took some pictures of the bay which made me miss home again. Also bought some Hawaiian Blue ice cream, and man was it blue!

Time was getting on now and there was still one more place we wanted to visit before we had to go back to the hostel. Tenjinbashi-suji is said to be the longest straight and covered shopping arcade in Japan. It's around 2.6km long. Shop after shop after shop. Pretty cool place. Bought some cookie cutters and a pot. They have the best supermarket I've ever seen there. It's all lit up with dozens of brightly coloured lights and the staff shout and holler to get people to come in and buy stuff. And everything is sooo cheap there! I picked up a huge selection of sushi for only 250yen. You know, it wasn't the greatest sushi but it's no worse than what you'd pick up in the 7/11 and for this much food I'd expect to pay 500-600 yen for it there. More craziness in crazy Osaka town O.o

We nearly made it to the end of this street before our feet started to cry big time. It was getting late and we were hungry and very very tired so we decided to go pick up our stuff from the hostel and take a break. Once we had our bags we went to sit in a nearby park. As always, there were people doing stuff there, even at 21:00. In the 3 or 4 times we'd passed we saw people doing circus skills twice and bmx bikers. Sat and ate food for a bit and then thought it best to go look for the bus station. Didn't take too long to get there. Jonna tried to get us killed by running across roads instead of waiting for the green man :p No worries though, we're still alive.

Finding the bus station turned out to be pretty easy. Finding a McDonalds to get a coffee (we had free tokens) was impossible. Saw some pretty lights and things but no McD's. In protest we went in every combini that we passed to look for kit kats. Found mochi ice cream instead which was om nom nom. Funnily enough, going in 4 or 5 combini's was a good thing as I found Kit Kat letter. A kit kat that you post. O.o

At 22:20 we checked in to the bus station and at around 23:00 the bus pulled away. Another uncomfortable night but it was worth it for a great weekend in freak town. :)