Samstag, 7. April 2012

April 7 - Osaka
I got up at around 8:00 (shortly before my alarm clock rang:-), took a shower, packed and checked out at around 9:15. Then I had breakfast in the hotel`s restaurant til 10:20 (this time the staff could speak a little bit english). Mentally I hadn`t arrived in Japan at that time. So I used fork and knife instead of chopsticks and wasn`t in the mood for trying some "strange looking" vegetables, fish or rotten beans. So I ate a miso soup, salad, scrambeld eggs, sausages and something black that I dind`t know and that turned out to be something fishy....
The last night I stayed in a single room. Because my friend Yuki would arrive that evening we had booked a double room in the same hotel. Usually the checking-out time in Japan is 10:00 and the checking-in is between 15:00 and 16:00. Here I was lucky because I could already check in at 13:00. I still wasn`t in the mood for going out, I was sleepy and still tired and so I decided to stay in the common room of the hotel and started reading in the book, I had bought at the airport. At 13:00 I checked in, went to our room and continued reading. I know that usually you should get used to the time difference as soon as possible but this time I couldn`t resist taking a nap of about 3 hours in the afternoon. Shortly after waking up my friend Yuki arrived at around 17:30. We were happy to see each other again and talked for a while before we decided to have some dinner. Actually she was really exhausted at that time because when she got off the bus earlier she was supposed to reach the hotel within 5 minutes on foot but she got lost several times and was walking around for over 1 hour (carrying her suitcase with her).
We went out to have some food, walked through that pretty big underpass station (it is not such a good idea to walk on the streets and pavement in that area in Osaka, so we were supposed to use that underpass every time when we wanted to go somewhere else). But it was really confusing down there. There were maps from time to time where you could find your position and the exit number you were looking for but when you reached an intersection they didn`t provide signs for every exit number or destination. So we got lost again:-) After a while we entered that big department and restaurant store and were looking for special food they only serve in Osaka. Now you need to know that in Japan around lunch or dinner time there are usually long queues in front of the restaurant. If you are close enough to the entrance there are already some chairs in front of the door and the waiter comes out and gives you the menu, so you can already order before you are actually in the restaurant. One of the "famous" food restaurants was so crowded that we had to line up about 1 hour, so we decided to take a different one and later on this turned out to be the number one (by accident we were lucky:-)) We had to wait only a few minutes and than I ate my first "Okonomiyaki". It looks like a big pancake and is made of noodles, potatoes same seafood etc. It was already served warm and on the hot plate in the middle of our table we could keep it warm while we were eating.

in front of the restaurant in Osaka
Okonomiyaki

During the dinner the young boy from the table next to us was "seemed to be in love with me". He was smiling at me and waving and so we had a short chat with the mother of that family. When the family had already left the restaurant the kid came back to our table and waved again, before he finally went home:-)
On the way back the hotel we got lost only once and when we were back we talked very long about our sightseeing plans and women stuff. In the end we fell asleep around 3 a.m. in the morning...

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