I got up early and caught the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Osaka. It didn't take long, because Osaka isn't very far away. Once I got to Osaka station, I discovered that it's very hard to get around. There are a lot of pillars throughout the various rooms in the station. The pillars made it really hard to see where to go and it made it even harder to get around the 50,000 people trying to find their way.

The Osaka JR train line circles all the way around the city. It was very handy for getting around. I got off at the stop with my hostel with a map from the hostel's website, but I got lost. I eventually stopped and asked a nice-looking old woman who was outside smoking for help. She didn't know English, and I didn't know enough Japanese to figure out what she was saying, so she just took me there. My Japanese professor said that would probably happen. :-) The people in Osaka are extremely nice!

The staff at the hostel are amazing. Some of them speak English very well, and even the ones that can't speak it very well are still able to be very helpful with directions and stuff. They gave me a great map of Osaka and I headed up to my room.

The room was small, but it really had everything I needed. There was a traditional Japanese bed (a mat), TV, and AC. The AC worked exceedingly well (probably because the room was sooooo small).

Here is the view from the window in my hostel room. There was an amusement park across the street - also the train station I got there from. It was a little loud in the morning, but not bad enough to wake me up.

I was thirsty, so I went to the soda machine in the hall and got a can of water. Want to take a guess what this drink is not?

That's right. That drink is NOT water, despite what the can says. It tasted more like one of the million sports drinks that are oh so popular here. Despite not being water, it was pretty thirst quenching.

There was sort of a front porch area on the hostel where people could go smoke (I'm guessing). I went out there to look around and snapped some photos.

After getting settled in, I decided to explore the neighborhood around the hostel. The neighborhood was called Tennoji, and there was actually a lot to do there. Directly across the street from the hostel was an amusement park called Festivalgate. Unfortunately, it appeared to be closed the entire time I was there. That roller coaster looks pretty interesting though!

I kept walking up the street and came across a decent zoo. I'm not going to talk about the photos much because most are pretty self explanatory. Overall though, I left feeling kind of sad for the animals there. The pens didn't seem especially well taken care of and most of the animals looked pretty sad. :-(

This monkey was not as happy as the monkeys at the Arashiyama monkey park I went to the day before.

Seals

You could buy food for the seals. Unfortunately, the birds usually got to it first.

The photo does not properly show just how evil these birds are. Can you see their eyes? They were blood red.

This playground was in the Zoo, which they situated under the overpass. It looked very ghetto.

Polar Bears

Asian Bear (I think they might be from China)

Enjoy HAPPINESS ... or else!

This shot of the Tsutenkaku Tower was taken from the Zoo. This is one of Osaka's famous monuments.

These penguins are some of the saddest ones I've ever seen. Especially that one in the front that has picked most of it's feathers out. :-(

Here is the famous japanese raccoon. They are called Tanuki. He was having a lot of fun playing with his tail. Unfortunately it was so dark in there that this is the only shot that turned out not so blurry.

Wolf

Fox

This zoo had a tiger exhibit, and it was actually a pretty nice exhibit compared to the rest of the zoo. The tigers seemed pretty happy, and their pen was rather large. I took a lot of pictures here for some reason.

This male tiger is marking his territory. He did this a few times while I was there.

In the middle of the zoo, was this water fountain. The animal (whatever it was) is peeing on you, and you're supposed to drink it. I'm sure the kids had a great time playing there. Cute, or creepy? You be the judge.

After the zoo, I headed to a nearby temple / cemetery. Like all Japanese things, space was limited so everything was very close together.

This photo didn't turn out too great because of the bright sun and the smoke from the incense and candles. The temple itself was full of people and there was some sort of a ceremony or service going on. Chris said that it's possible there was some mini-holiday going on since there were so many people there.

The following two pictures are Raijin and Fujin, but I'm not sure which one is which. Covering the statues was some very modern roof-thing. I'm not sure how functional it was, but it looked pretty cool.

This is the entrance torii to Shintennoki Temple. I really really like this photo. I really like how it merges urban living and the shrine. And as my friend Sini pointed out, it's a very busy photo - with lots of objects filling it up. Despite that though, it works pretty well. I think I'll be making this a background pic.

Here is the temple itself, I think.

Unfortunately after that photo the battery on my camera died. I walked around the temple some more, but there wasn't a lot to do. It looked like they were either preparing for, or cleaning up after a party or something.

I decided after my battery dying that I should probably get a new charger because I left my old one at Chris's apartment. So I walked up the street to Nipponbashi (Den Den Town). Nipponbashi is known for having any sort of electronic device, equipment, or media you could ever want at a decent price. I walked and walked and walked and walked block after block up the street, but no one had the charger. Everyone seemed to have my camera and maybe even my battery, but no charger. There were stores for electronics (computers, tvs, radios, headphones cameras, appliances, etc), stores for lights (various fluorescent lights, open signs, home lighting, etc), stores for action figures, home security, arcades, pachinko parlors, the occasional restaurant, cd/dvd stores, and so much more. You might enter the store on one floor, then go up through as many as 9 other floors of various other sections of the store, or various other stores that rent out the space.

There was even a floor I came across that was entirely dedicated to air soft guns. I heard that in other countries, the guns they use look extremely real (in the US there are laws that require them to purposely look fake) - but this was incredible. They had LITERALLY any type of gun you wanted. Any shotgun, assault rifle, pistol, rifle, even hand grenades and missile launchers! There was row after row of guns - even more than I've ever seen at any gun store or gun show in Arkansas! Each gun looked exactly like a real gun in every way imaginable. There were even some 6shooter pistols, and it looked like there were shiny brass bullets in the round magazine thing. A lot of the guns were on sale, selling for a good bit under $100 apiece. If I knew that I wouldn't have any problems getting that back, I would probably have considered getting one. Chris mentioned that one of the reasons air soft guns are so popular in Japan is because real guns are illegal. I guess that makes a lot of sense! I wanted to take pictures here, but besides the fact that my battery was dead, there were signs up saying no cameras. Oh well. :-(

I reached the end of Nipponbashi and headed back down the other side of the street - still no luck finding a charger. I came across one store with a French man running the camera department. He said that they didn't have the charger, but mentioned a place way up the street that would. I didn't really want to walk all the way there, so I kept walking up Den Den Town hoping to come across a store that had one. I got to the end of the street without finding a single charger. By that point I was very tired and my feet and back hurt, but I needed my camera to work!

So instead of walking, I took the subway up to the end of Nipponbashi and went a little farther to a camera store. The guy there that was helping me didn't appear to know how to speak English, but he did know how to write it. It was very strange. I asked if they had the charger, and he said something to me, then got his pad of paper and pen and wrote "you would like me to charge your battery?" I told him no. He then wrote "you would like me to sell you a charger for the battery?" and I said yes. His first question perplexed me. He would actually charge the battery for me? If that was a real option, I should have taken it, as the charge on the battery lasts for weeks. He charged me a little more than it should have cost, but oh well... what could I do? I decided that once I got back home and had two chargers, I'd just sell this one and get what money I could back out of it.

So after that I grabbed more onigiri and coffee milk from the convenience store for dinner and took the subway back to the hostel. The hostel was in a GREAT location since there were two subways literally right outside the front door and a JR station across the street. :-)

I got back to the hostel, aching, and collapsed in bed, ate my supper, tried to blog (but failed), showered, and went to bed. I had apparently done a lot of walking that day, as I had blisters on my feet in places I didn't know you could get blisters. I counted 4 at one point on my left foot alone (ouch). No wonder it hurt so much to walk!

Overall, not such a great first day in Osaka, and I had no idea what I was doing the next day. This is when I started getting tired and stressed out, but there wasn't much else I could do. I decided that night that I was heading back to Wada (Chris's town) as soon as I was able. I had to stay at least until Wednesday (and today is Saturday) because I had a reservation at a hotel, tickets to Universal Studios Japan, and tickets to a Hanshin Tigers baseball game the night before.

Stick with me tomorrow when I talk about my second day in Osaka as I visit the NHK Studio, Castle Osaka, and The Peace Museum!