(Osaka Aquarium - Otters, dolphins, sharks, rays, penguins, jellyfish etc...and more. )Ate 串かつ(ku-shi-ka-tsu) for lunch. Kushikatsu is apparently another Osaka specialty, where most of the food is served on skewers and you dip it in batter, then panko flour (something like bread crumbs) and deep fry the stick in a small fryer in front of you at the table. Interesting.
(The number of skewer/sticks on the girls' side of the table. Yum.)
After that was mostly spent walking around in Ame-mura (short for Amerika Mura; mura = village) which is a shopping area. Osaka fashion is somewhat louder and more colourful than Tokyo's - almost like an ahlian version, but it could be said that it's a much more individualistic and self-confident image than Tokyo's depressing sea of black coats. The people seemed more friendly and direct too, quite in contrast to Tokyo's politeness and keep-to-oneself feeling.
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Day 3 was spent at Nara - famous for its free-ranging deers and ancient Buddhist temples/shrines. Visited Todaiji, apparently the oldest and biggest wooden temple in the world maybe? Very pretty. The deers were some sort of nuisance though, especially if one was carrying a handful of the deer crackers - they'd come chasing after you.
(The beautiful Todaiji - biggest wooden Buddhist structure in Japan and maybe in the world too.)
Can't say I really liked Nara much - seemed too much like a tourist town, a town that never developed it's own modern character beyond displaying it's old glories. I had very yummy omu (shortened from omelette in katakana) rice there though. Omu rice is usually a fluffy fluffy (japanese call it fu-wa fu-wa) creamy omelette atop a mound of 'chicken rice'. Their chicken rice is basically rice with chicken meat and 'fried' in tomato sauce. The whole thing is then topped with demi-glace sauce. Somehow the whole dish just came together as a pretty delicious combination. No pictures sadly - ran out of battery and too busy eating heh.
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Day 4 was mostly spent walking around Namba/Amerika-mura area for shopping since one of my friends really liked to shop there. The 3 of us spoke to a shopperson for almost 1 hour. Osaka people really seem more curious towards foreigners - perhaps maybe because Osaka isn't really crawling with foreigners like Tokyo sometimes seem to be.
In the evening, took our backpacks/duffels and boarded the local train for Kobe! Kobe - port city with the "exotic" atmosphere - was quite a change from either Tokyo or Osaka. Dinner was at a small individually-owned (not franchise yay!) and dinner was good. =)
(The menu was written/printed in beautiful calligraphy script on what seemed like shaved wood.)
(My dinner - The lovely udon set meal. Came with so many things - rice topped with 1 prawn and omelette shreds, abit of tempura, udon and a mix of sushi!)
(A sashimi mix that I ordered and we all shared. All was good except for the squid/ika.)
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Day 5 was for Kobe and it was a surprisingly very likeable place! Despite all the 'what are you going to Kobe for? it's boring...' responses that we got prior to the trip. Beautiful mixture of architecture, many tooth-decay inducing patisseries, restaurants of various cuisines, a quietly vibrant frequency, sake breweries, the red port tower... and last but not least, KOBE BEEF.
(The entrance of the sake brewery museum we visited. Free entry and free sake-tasting. I like!)
(Before dinner, we went walking about Kobe - saw the European houses, Kobe's signature Red Port Tower and Nankin-machi, Kobe's Chinatown. As gaudily red and exaggerated as the place was, there was a sense of familiarity and comfort. =) )
(Last dinner of the trip in Kobe - went to a steak place and despite the hefty price tag of 4,500yen, I decided I really just had to try Kobe beef because once I got back to Tokyo, I just know I would never be able to willingly spend so much on it again. Normal price of 1 piece of Kobe beef is about 10,000yen anyway, so I went ahead and tried it. The moment I bit into a piece, I immediately thought: "I am NEVER going to be happy eating any other type of beef again...". It is THAT good.I still think about it.)
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