Osaka

The first place we went on our recent holiday was Osaka, primarily to see the huge aquarium there that has two whale sharks. The aquarium tank was indeed huge. The sharks were big but not as big as I expected. Apparently they are not adults yet and probably they won’t grow to full size in a tank like they would in the wild. I was surprised by the size of the sea otters. It made realize that I may have never seen a sea otter in person. They are HUGE compared to river otters!!! Like small bears!



We stayed in an area of Osaka close to Shin Sekai (interesting information at Wikipedia here). This area was the big entertainment area back in the first half of the 1900s. There is a big tower that you can still go up in. We went to this area with Heather and Jeremy back in July, but I guess we didn’t take the time to really explore because the one street we saw before is not the main area. The main area was bustling with restaurants, manzai (a style of Japanese comedy) theaters, shops, retro movie theaters and game arcades, and shogi (Japanese chess) and go (like Othello) parlors full of old Japanese men playing. It was quite exciting and we spent both evenings wandering around. There was a special dish in this area that seemed very popular. I just found out on the internet that it is called kushi-yaki. You order from a menu of food-on-a-stick. Like yakitori but more choices of vegetables, meat, and seafood. Then it is battered in a light, sweet batter and deep fried. I had never had anything like that batter. It was delicious (thought I am sure far from healthy)!! At lunch the lines were so long for the restaurants that some of the lines had security guards!!
Luckily dinner was less crowded. (Chad, have you ever had this food?)


We also were able to see an interesting temple. We were just taking a walk and came upon a temple complex that had a building with 12 grey Buddha statues in it. Turns out that the statues are made of human ashes. The reasoning behind it is that once people are cremated, their ashes get put in the ground and cannot be seen and are separated from the living. The temple decided long ago to reconnect the dead to the living and allow the dead to be seen and not forgotten. Each statue is made from the ashes of 200,000 people! Very interesting!

Our hotel was in a very seedy area of Osaka. I would go so far as to say it was the seediest place I have ever been in Japan. Lots and Lots of homeless men wandering around. I guess men from all over Japan come to this area of Osaka. Wikipedia says that this area of Osaka has a reputation as being the most dangerous area in all of Japan!! Didn't know that. But keep that in perspective. The most dangerous area in Japan is probably less dangerous than my own neighborhood in Indianapolis. There were lots of old run-down shop fronts and dirty sidewalks. But the hostel was cheap and catered to budget travelers. It was definitely fun for us to walk around a big city. Being stuck in Kani all the time gets a little boring. We were reminded of our old days near Yokohama. I guess that is the last we will see of Osaka for a while!