David Needham

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I left Japan and landed in Seattle around 10am. The flight went really well for the most part. I sat next to a really attractive woman about my age that was obviously not Japanese, but spoke it really well. Unfortunately, we didn't really talk. :-p Oh well. I watched two movies on the way: The Chronicals of Narnia (2): Prince Caspian and 21 (the movie about the MIT student who learned to count cards in blackjack). After that I slept for a little while.

So Henry and Ben picked me up at the airport and brought me back to their condo. After that Henry needed to go to work for a little while, so I took a nap until it was time for Ben and I to meet him for supper. I basically just hung out online and watched the olympics all day the next day.

On Thursday I took the ferry to Bremerton to meet my roommate from the last two years, Nathan. The ferry took about 45 min. The weather was GREAT for a ferry ride, and I got a lot of great pictures which I may post someday later. Nathan works for the Navy, and his building is right next to the ferry terminal, so I just walked from there and met him just as he was getting off work. His apartment was nearby, so we walked there so he could show me around. His apartment was basically a small house just off the road behind some other houses (sort of like something someone would build for their aging parent or something). It was roomy, but not much bigger than our old apartment, but it's kitchen was much MUCH better. He even had a small guest room. After the tour, we had a bunch of time to kill before the ferry, so we decided to go see a movie. We saw Tropic Thunder, which was alright, but worth waiting to see on dvd. After the movie we went out to eat, then he took me back to the ferry. We were almost too late, and I had to run to make it on time.

On Friday (today), Henry and I went on a tour of underground Seattle. We learned a lot about the history of how Seattle was created and grew over the years. I thought it was really interesting to hear about all of the history, but the tour didn't seem a whole lot different than walking through Grandma and Grandpa's musty old basement. :-p

Tomorrow we leave for Victoria, Canada. I'll write more about that after we get back on Monday. I've been having a great time hanging out with one of my two most favorite brothers! ^_^

Henry told me about a problem I was having with my website, so I looked into it and realized that the files for my site were out of date. I updated in the quickest, least dependable way, and I lost some of my files. All of my blog posts and pictures are there, but my theme and other website functions are missing. I'll be able to restore everything when I get back home to Peoria, but until then the site will look like this.

I really didn't do much after Osaka, so I'm going to combine all of the days into one post.

After I checked out of the capsule hotel, I headed to Shin-Osaka train station and took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo. I played on my Nintendo DS the whole time, so it seemed like it went pretty quickly. I tried calling Chris from Tokyo to let him know that I was coming, but there was no answer on his phone, so I kept going on my way.

I got to Chiba and got a hold of Chris. I wasn't in a hurry and had a lot of time, so I stopped and got some ramen at the shop I went to last year. This place didn't handle any cash - you bought tickets for the food you wanted in a machine out in front, then brought the ticket in to show them what you got. The ramen is great there, so I'm glad I stopped. After a couple hours on a train, I got to Minamiboso station, in Wada.

Most of my time in Wada was spent just taking it easy. I spent a lot of times in the evening watching tv or playing the DS. I spent some time online and got a lot of my photos and blog posts posted.

A few days I was in Wada I went to the beach. I'd swim for awhile, then lay on the beach and nap or eat lunch, then swim some more later. The first day I was out there I wore my sunscreen and didn't get burnt - but I didn't even get a tan even though I was in the sun for about 4 hours. The second day, I wore sunscreen on my face and ears, but that's it and this time I finally got a tan. I could feel a bit of burn on my shoulders, but that was about it. It wasn't until later that night and the next day that I could feel a little burnt all over. It wasn't bad though, and it seems like I have to get a little burnt to get a tan, so oh well.

The first day, I went to the beach nearest Chris's. It's where most of the surfers go because there are nice waves there. Half of the beach is a metallic black color while the rest is the standard greyish sand color. There were some rocks in the water and I got a little scratched up. I expected it to hurt more - being cut in saltwater, but it wasn't bad.

Here are some photos from around this beach:

The second day, I went to the "nice" beach a little way up the road past the docks. Chris let me use his bike, so I had a nice bike ride before I got there. This beach was very busy with lots of kids and families hanging out. There were even some life guards there as well as changing rooms and showers. There was no black sand here or any trash. There were large rocks breaking out of the water on each side of the beach and there were kids creeping around in these areas doing snorkeling. I got in the water and was surprised to find a huge layer of seaweed I had to wade through. Next game a layer of rocks, at least as bad as the other beach. The waves here were a lot tamer, which seemed less fun to me. Nevertheless, I had a good time there.

I didn't get any photos of this beach because it felt too awkward to take pictures with that many people around. Plus there were a lot of kids, and technically it's illegal to take photos with kids in it. Oh well.

Chris and I ate a lot of good meals there. I ate breakfast and lunch on my own most days, and we ate in a couple days, but most evenings we'd go to Tateyama or Kamagawa.

We went to the conveyor belt sushi place again. It was delicious and pretty cheap (especially compared to how much it would be in the US). The place was pretty busy, and we had to wait in line for a place to sit at the conveyor belt.

Earlier that day we went to eat at Denny's. I had a BLT sandwich. It was pretty good and the price wasn't bad. I got a mini slice of cheesecake for 150 yen, but was disappointed to find out that it was pretty tiny.

We also went to a family style pizza place. My pizza had potatoes and bacon on it (and maybe cream cheese). It was really good, but the best part about this place was the drink set. Most places in Japan charge 300 yen for a drink other than water, and refills are not included. Most family style restaurants have a drink set for less than 300 yen, and you can get as many refills as you want. They had a lot of great drinks like Calpis, Calpis Soda, Coke, Fanta Grape, Fanta Melon, various coffees, and more. My favorite drink was mixing the Calpis Soda and the Fanta Melon.

I forgot to mention, but in Kyoto we ate at another family style restaurant and I got a corn and mayo pizza. Despite how it sounds, it was actually very good too.

Another night we went to another family style restaurant and I got some sort of cheesy noodle gratin thing. It had shrimp and crab meat in it. I got a drink set again, and the melon + calpis soda combo was great as always.

On my last evening in Japan, Chris asked if I wanted to be adventurous. I said sure, so we went to a tiny little restaurant in Wada. We couldn't read the menu, so Chris asked what the special of the day was. The waitress said everything, so we told her that we would trust her to pick something for us. I guess the chef heard us talking cuz about that time he came out there. He asked Chris if meat was ok, and something else that Chris couldn't understand was ok... we told him both was fine. We got a small bowl of miso, cucumbers, a bowl of rice, and two pork dishes with vegetables that were by far the best pork I've ever had. I'm not sure what he did, but that was some of the best food I've ever had. Even better, the price was very cheap - especially for as much food as we got and as good as it was.

Last summer there was a house being built near Chris's apartment. You might remember me talking about it in my blog then. Basically I said that it took 1 day to put the scaffolding up, then 1 day to get the rest of this up. Heres a picture from last summer:

Here's what the house looks like now. A good portion of their front yard was limestone. Chris said that most Japanese people don't have lawn mowers, so I can imagine doing this saves a lot of time and hassle.

I'm not sad to be back in the states, but I wish I could have stayed in Japan longer. On the way to the airport I'd stare out the window of the train and try to soak as much of it in as I could before it was gone. I've seen some beautiful things in the US, but it can't compare to the beauty that is everywhere in Japan. I'm not sure when I'll get to go back again, as this is Chris's last year there and it would be more expensive for me to have to get a hotel every night. I'm sure I'll be going back again some day.

They had two dishes, and this is a lot of space for one family. They had to have been rich.

Here is a new house that was being built last summer when I was here. The lawn was mostly limestone.

Here is the dark beach I talked about in the blog.

Here are some surfers. The beach wasn't very busy today.

There were some really great colors in the clouds today. The photo didn't quite pick it up as good as it looked in person.

There were some really great colors in the clouds today. The photo didn't quite pick it up as good as it looked in person.

Today started out pretty good. I woke up at the Ramada and ate some onigiri and coffee milk I bought the night before. I checked out and asked them to hold my bags for me so I didn't have to haul my suitcase and huge backpack to Universal Studios.

Universal is an amusement park sort of like Disney. They have their own JR train line, and fortunately my pass worked to get there for free.

I thought that Universal had some good roller coaster rides, but I could only find one roller coaster (for adults) in the whole park! You can kind of see it in this photo of the entrance.

One of the first "rides" I came across was an ET Adventure, but the waiting time was about 80 minutes, so I decided to move on to the next ride - the Terminator 3d adventure. The waiting time here was only about 30 minutes, so I figured I'd try it out. The line seemed a little long and was mostly outside, but I had my Nintendo DS, so I was able to keep myself busy.

Once we got inside, we were led through another long waiting line. This ride is set up as if we were seeing a presentation by Cyberdyne in present day, the company that created terminator robots. There were satiric posters on the wall that I really wish I had taken pictures of (there were "no photos" signs). They said things like "Cyberdyne - recreating the nuclear family" and showed a family with a glowing nuclear reactor in their fireplace. Another one said "Look Mom! Billy has joined the military!" and depicted a young boy playing something like a video game on a computer (suggesting he was controlling real robots in a real war).

The Terminator ride started out a lot like the Honey I Shrunk the Kids ride at Tokyo Disney. We got our special non-red/blue 3d-glasses and were led into what appeared to be the lobby of Cyberdyne. We were talked to by our tour guide, but it was in Japanese. Se must have been funny though, because people kept laughing. After a short interruption by the rebel forces (and John Conner), we were led into the auditorium. They started off showing their newest robots in a live fire exercise. They brought up 6 life sized robots with assault rifles around the auditorium (3 on each side). They lowered some targets and showed us what they could do. The cool thing about this part was that there wasn't anything in 3d yet - they were actual animatronic robots that looked awesome.

Overall, the ride was pretty good. They did a lot of cool things with the bad guy from T2, robots and bullets flying all over the place, and the seats jumped to give everyone a fright near the end.

I walked around for a little while - deciding that it was time to check out a roller coaster or two to make sure I have time to do them again if I wanted to. I walked all the way around the park before I realized that there was only one - the one I was greeted with at the front of the park. I was pretty bummed about this, but decided to make the best of it and check it out.

Before getting in line, the workers for the Hollywood Adventure ride (roller coaster) require that everyone empty their pockets of pretty much everything. We were each given lockers to put stuff in for 100yen (which we got back when we came back). I tried to sneak into line with my Nintendo DS, but those workers are sharp. They made me put it in the locker, so I had to wait in line for about an hour without anything to do but stand there. *sigh*

Each individual seat had it's own "radio". Basically, you can choose what song you want to hear as you're riding the roller coaster. I could choose between J-pop, Rock, Rap, or Pop. It started out going up, up, up - what appeared to be straight up. It was pretty good roller coaster overall, but it wasn't worth me doing again without my DS for the line. ;-)

Something weird happened around this time. It was only about 11am, but people started leaving the park. I guess they could have been leaving to eat, but the wait times for all of the rides dropped by almost half.

I went through the park again and rode the Back to the Future ride, Backdraft presentation thing, and the E.T. ride. The E.T. ride was sort of like the It's a Small World rides at Disney. You ride on bikes attached to the ceiling like a roller coaster and go through the movie briefly. Then, you zip through a portal into E.T.'s home planet, where large and small E.T.s are humming the theme song. It was weird to say the least.

I needed to get ready for the baseball game that night and secure a room in a capsule hotel, so I headed back. I found the hotel and checked in, then I headed out to eat supper before heading to the Hanshin Tigers baseball game. The game started at 6, and I wanted to get there early, so I went out to eat at about 4. The Hanshin Tigers stadium is just outside of Osaka, so they have their own JR train line (but not applicable for my JR pass).

I got to Hanshin stadium about an hour later and my first thought was that it was incredibly empty for there being a game that night. That said, the stadium doors were open and the shops were selling souvenirs and stuff. I went up to the door and the workers told me that my ticket wasn't right, but they didn't know enough English to tell me why. About that time an awesome guy who knew both English and Japanese very well came up and asked if he could help. He talked to them and explained that even though it was a home game, and this was their stadium, they were at another stadium in Osaka. He showed me where they were on the map and I headed back to the train station. I got to the train station just as the game was starting. I was going to be late, but that was ok. This train took about an hour and a half to get back into Osaka and jumped on the next train around the loop.

Except that train was on the wrong track. Instead of heading around the Osaka loop, this particular train headed straight across the loop. For whatever reason, this train wasn't even on my map. Rather than get off and head back to get on the right train, I decided to ride it across to the other side of the loop and just take it around from the other direction. So I was riding around the loop when we made a regular stop at one of the stations. Everyone got off except me and another person. I thought that was weird, but that happens sometimes at really popular stops. I waited... and waited. Eventually the train started moving again - but in the wrong direction! I was headed back to the last station we stopped at! Arg. So I got off there and headed back again - this time getting off when everyone else did and got on the train right next to it.

2 hours after the game started, I arrive at the train station nearest the stadium the Hanshin Tigers are playing at. It is raining... hard. There is a freak thunderstorm. I wasn't sure if the stadium was covered or not, and at this point after everything I'd went through, I didn't feel much like going any more - especially if it meant that I'd have to get wet. I was fed up so I headed back to the capsule hotel.

Fortunately, my experience at the capsule hotel was MUCH better than the rest of my day. The capsule hotel took up about 4 floors at the top of a 10 story building in downtown Osaka. One whole floor was a bathhouse (onsen) that we could use for free. They also had massage and other relaxation options available, but I passed on that. The onsen was relaxing enough for me. After washing up, I got into the hot water first. Each tub (pool) had a temperature readout, so it was easy to see how hot (or cold) each one was. It's traditional for a onsen to have an outside tub (pool) area, and this one was no different. It was weird with other skyscrapers being so nearby, but there were some privacy hedges around, so it wasn't bad. This onsen was much nicer than the one that Chris, Dan, and I went to.

After the onsen, I went to the tv room to sit in the fancy recliners and watch some TV. There were a lot of people in this room sleeping (why they didn't just go to bed, I'm not sure). There was also a huge bookshelf in this room where they had ton of manga, magazines, and other books that we could read. I caught the last of the Hanshin Tigers game at about 10 - they lost.

I figured it was about time to head to my capsule. I had a top bunk, so I climbed up. The capsules were much bigger than they looked in the pictures. I could lay down and not touch the ceiling. I could reach both walls, but I didn't feel cramped at all. There was a little TV in there, so I had it on while I played on my DS until I got tired.

I wasn't sure what time check out was, but I didn't want to get back to Chris's too early (before he got off work) so I set my alarm for 9. I had no problems falling asleep with other people being around, and even in the morning I couldn't hear their alarms and I didn't wake up until about 8:30. I got up and headed out.

The capsule hotel experience was pretty awesome. The room only cost about 3100 yen (less than $30) for the night, and it included the onsen (which cost us 1400 yen with Chris and Dan). Not only that, but everything we used there was free. We got robes to wear around and even boxers. In the morning, there were combs, razors, hair stuff (spray, gel, tonic, mousse, etc), and even single use toothbrushes (a toothbrush in plastic with a bit of toothpaste already on the bristles). I felt like I was at an exclusive club when I was there.

Compared to my stay at the Ramada for about 10,000 yen or a stay at a $30 hotel in the US, this place was absolutely amazing. I would definitely do this again, and I'd recommend anyone that has the chance to try it again. That said, I've heard that it can get a bit more rowdy on the weekends when there are a number of drunk business men that check in. Since I was there during the week, I didn't have that problem.

So overall my day was pretty crappy, but it ended well enough. :-)

This is the end of my hardcore blogging. The rest of my time was spent in Wada where I took it easy and spent a lot of time at the beach. I'll still blog for these days, but since I didn't do much, I wont have much to say.

Join me tomorrow as I take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, then head to Wada.

Here's the front gate to Universal Studios Japan! The roller coaster seen here was pretty fun.

Here is the train that took me to Universal Studios Japan. It was a standard train car, but stylized very nicely.

Today started out alright. I woke up at the hostel and headed downstairs to check out my room. I checked out and asked if they could hold on to my bags for me so I wouldn't have to haul them around until 2 when I check in at the Ramada. They said it was fine and put them in their back office.

I then panicked a little because I realized that I hadn't found a capsule hotel to stay at after the Ramada. I got on their computer and looked for some capsule hotel listings. I found a lot, but I couldn't figure out where they were on my map. I asked the people at the front desk if they knew of any, and they pointed out one at the top of Niponbashi outside Namba station. See how helpful this place was? They even pointed me to their competition!

From there I headed out and got some breakfast - more onigiri and coffee milk. On the way out I realized that I hadn't taken a picture of the creepy church next door to the hostel yet.

Note the spiky fence and the TV boxes. They were constantly showing what appeared to be church sermons on the TVs and had posters on the fence with pictures of hell. The few times I passed by, the doors were open and the rooms were crowded with people shouting - sometimes watching something on a projector. It might sound alright, but I got a very very creepy vibe from this place. Something seemed off. After talking to people at Chris's church, they said it was probably a cult pretending to be Christian - as there are a lot of those there. Anyway, I'm glad I stayed away.

My first stop today was Tsutenkaku tower. It was just up the street from the hostel, so I headed that way. Osaka is a city known for business, and there were small and large shops set up along almost every street - especially around the tower. It was a very busy area.

I got to go up into the tower for free with my pass, so I headed up the elevator. The view from the tower was great! Here is a photo of one of the interstates next to the Zoo I just went to (remember the creepy overpass playground?).

I hadn't gotten any pictures of the zebras the day before, so I snapped some from the tower. :-)

Osaka sure is huge.

After heading back down the tower, I came across a small arcade inside. They had a neat game where you chop fish with a cleaver, and another game where you have to try and slide a glass down a bar to someone.

After the tower, I hopped on the subway and headed off to the Kaiyukan Aquarium. Once I got off at my stop, I was a little hungry, so I stopped at a McDonalds and got an ice cream. They were on the 100 yen value menu, so it was a great deal. Ice cream in Japan is reasonably new, and so it's often pretty expensive. Usually, a standard cone of ice cream is 300 yen, though you can buy ice cream sandwich type ice cream in convenience stores for about 150 yen. Still, the deal at McDonalds was great. Even their flurries were 300 yen, so I got one on the way back to the subway a few hours later. :-D

I started getting close to the aquarium (following the crowds) when suddenly I saw a huge ferris wheel. It was the Tempozan. Apparently it was the largest in the world, but they seemed to still think that it was. ;-) That said, it was HUGE.

This shot was taken from near the street outside the building you go in to get on the ferris wheel. I was looking almost straight up.

From there I went to the aquarium, which I got into for a discount because of my pass. There is an introduction, which told me that each area is based on a different section of the pacific ring of fire. They started in an above sea area where they had seals and otters and a number of freshwater fish and animals.

Then I come up to an archway of solid glass. Their first aquarium-ish area covers the entire walkway. It goes from one side to the other using one solid piece of glass. Fish were zipping around back and forth and over top. It was very neat, I'm just sad the photo didn't turn out so well.

Next we came up on the penguin exhibit. These penguins looked very happy and healthy. They even had an ice / snow machine pumping in ice to keep them cool. One penguin appeared to especially enjoy that.

Next, dolphins. The dolphin exhibit here was very impressive - but because of how many I'd seen so recently I didn't take many pictures. One dolphin, however, seemed to enjoy swimming around and licking the glass. I'd guess that the workers put something there to make them do that, but it seemed to be only one dolphin doing it.

There were a number of great exhibits in this aquarium, but many of the photos didn't turn out very well. The next great exhibit, and really the masterpiece of the aquarium was the pacific ocean tank. It had more fish in it than I have ever seen before, and it stored about 5,400 tons of water. They had two whale sharks (the largest sharks in the world), a number of stingrays, tiger sharks, hammerhead sharks, leopard sharks, tons of fish, and who knows what else. The whole aquarium appeared to be built around this tank, as each floor circled around at an incline around this tank. Each layer of the tank highlighted different creatures that are most commonly at that depth. Every time I looked at it it was breathtaking.

These fish were screaming because they were about to be eaten. Actually, they (and the whale sharks) kept doing this over and over. I'm guessing they were eating food too small for us to see.

This huge manta ray was in he same tank as the pacific ocean tank, but separated by a huge net. I wonder why.

At the bottom of the tank, people in scuba gear were cleaning the rocks. They dig up some of the rocks and suck up all of crap (literally) that came up with that long tube. Apparently his watched worked just fine there, as he'd look down at it periodically.

This is the sunfish tank. Sunfish are very strange fish.

This sea turtle looked MUCH happier than the one at Sea World.

They had this large tank full of moray eels. It reminded me a lot of the eel from The Little Mermaid.

These are evil crabs from an alien planet. Check out their pointy claws. They almost look like thorns!

This is how thick the glass in these tanks is. The writing says that one of the large pieces of glass for the pacific ocean tank is 10 tons.

Next were a number of jellyfish exhibits. Some were small, some were big - some were VERY small. Unfortunately most of the photos didn't turn out. Here are some that did. The first jellyfish here were in a huge glass cylinder from ceiling to floor.

The next set of jellyfish had very long and skinny tentacles. I'm not really sure what kept from all from getting tangled up, but it the seemingly abstract shapes made from them moving around was pretty neat. It almost looked like a painting at times.

These jellyfish were kind of stringy like the last ones, but they also had some poofy bits around their bodies.

After that the aquarium was more or less over. I headed back outside and headed into the mall next door to grab some lunch. There was a KFC there, which I decided to eat at (they're very popular in Japan). I got some normal chicken, fries, and a drink. Unlike US KFCs, the KFCs in Japan serve beer at their restaurants. This is very common in Japan, in fact it seems like beer can be bought almost anywhere - even in theme parks (like Sea World). The fries came unseasoned, but I had the option of three types of seasoning. I choose cheese, which came with a small white cheese packet (sort of like cheesy popcorn from the metal tins). You take the packet and poor it into the bag of fries, then shake them up to coat them! They were deliciously cheesy.

After KFC, I walked around a bit and came across a small arcade. I was mostly used to everything I saw there because of being here last year, but some things still shocked me. For a good number of the "crane game" type games, the prize was an enormous bag of potato chips. Are you familiar with the very popular arcade shoot'em up House of the Dead? In Japan, they have an amazing new game called "The Typing of the Dead". It is exactly how you might imagine it. It's based exactly on the House of the Dead game, except that to "shoot" you have to type a word or sentence. Wow Japan. Wow.

After the mall, I headed to the Osaka World Trade Center (WTC). I had to get on a new "tram" which I found out was actually a bus dressed up to look like a train. I'm not sure how it ran or curved along the tracks without a steering wheel, but it ran on rubber tires on a narrow track.

On the way to the WTC, there was as small shop that sold a bunch of American-looking things - including license plates.

No pets. No smoking. No cameras. Love? Thats A-OK. Actually, on the other side it has AED or something on it to say that it has a defibrillator in the area. They seem to be EVERYWHERE in Japan.

I go to go up in the WTC for free because of my pass. They had a glass elevator that takes you up to the very top. It's a little scary to go so fast, so high - but very cool. We actually got so high that at one point it started getting harder to see farther distances because of the haze / clouds. ^_^ We're at the harbor area of Osaka.

This is the tram station where the fake trains are worked on and stored.

I think those were business hotels. Probably for people that work at the World Trade Center.

I thought this was an interesting view of the docks where they unload huge storage containers.

There were some people way below playing tennis. It's a little hard to see the ball on this photo, but looking back it almost looks like a video game.

On the way out of the WTC, I saw this sign. I'm not sure if it means that the toilet was created by a handicapped person, or if it was located directly next to a handicapped person. Oh well.

After that I caught the tram and subway back to the hostel and got my bags. I headed to the Ramada, but the sign at the station said that the subway exit inside the Ramada was closed, so I had to take another exit. I did, but then I couldn't find the Ramada anywhere. *sigh* I was lost again. I walked around a couple blocks looking for it before I asked for help again. The nice woman pointed me in the right direction and I got there quickly.

I checked into my room and headed up. I did a LOT of walking today, so I was very tired. I couldn't wait to get my shoes off and lay down. It was only about 6 or so, but I didn't feel like doing anything else. I sat around awhile and rested up, then went out to get some supper and visit the HEP 5 building's giant ferris wheel (not the one I'd went to today).

I walked from the subway station to the HEP 5 building looking for food, but couldn't find anything that looked good. The building is set up like a pizza cutter with the ferris wheel being the blade. Part of the ferris wheel goes inside the top of the building.

It was a little scary to be up so high in a car that moved a little. If I moved from side to side (or moved from one side to the other quickly like I was doing to take pictures) it would rock back and forth a little. Regardless, I got some nice photos of Osaka at night!

The rest of the night was pretty boring. I walked back to the subway station, still hungry. I didn't want to go straight back to the Ramada without food, so I walked around the neighborhood a little. I couldn't find any place that looked good, so instead of more onigiri I got a bento box at the convenience store and went to bed.

It was a good, busy day - but I was glad to be in bed.

Tune in tomorrow as I have a pretty crappy day, but have a great time at a capsule hotel!

Here is where the ferris wheel attaches itself to the building. It was a pretty awesome place to have a ferris wheel.

This is yet another view from a huge farris wheel on top of the HEP 5 building in Osaka.

This is another view from a huge farris wheel on top of the HEP 5 building in Osaka.

This view is from a huge farris wheel on top of the HEP 5 building in Osaka.

The toilet was located next to the disabled person... or was it created by a disabled person?