David Needham

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!