Joel's visit to Japan Part I - Hiroshima and Osaka

Just got back from traveling around the Kansai area, visiting Osaka, Kyoto and Nara this past week. Joel arrived on the 18^th of July and the first week we chilled around my town and Hiroshima city. The first few days I brought him around Hiroshima and we visited the main sights around the city. We saw the A-bomb dome and its museum, and then also spent a day going to Miyajima. I also brought him to my favorite game center and we easily wasted 3 hours of our lives there. We also managed to tackle the huge sundae in Kure again, with only Joel and I eating it too.

We had a pretty busy week as Joel even spent a day at school with me. We taught three second grade classes and one grade first grade class. It was our final lesson of the school year, so I had an English quiz with questions about me and also started the class with a question period about Joel- where most kids guessed that he was older then me- which is true of course. I think my kids really enjoyed seeing a "real" foreigner and it was a fun day at school. (Picture below: Joel and I at the top of Mt. Noro)

The Friday before he left we managed to climb the local mountain in Kawajiri again and luckily, it was a gorgeous day and we had a great view from the top. We had a good climb up and then back down from Mt. Noro. Joel managed to snap lots of pictures of the local scenery, including a few waterfalls. (Picture below: Osaka is famous for these large mechanical crabs)

Last Saturday we left in the morning for our 7 day drip out to the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Kobe). We packed in a lot of sights and really prayed that the cheery blossoms would bloom during our visit. Unfortunately, we had the worst weather, full of wind, rain and even snow storms. To compound that, for most of the time he was here I was fighting a cold that he managed to catch as well. So we were both a bit sick for our trip around Kansai.

Our first 3 days in Osaka, the weather was actually pretty good and was just a bit overcast. We saw Sumo on our first day in Osaka. I had watched a lot of the matches on TV, but this was my first time seeing it live. It was a great experience as we sat in our seats for a good 4 hours watching huge men slam into each other. If you understand the rules and learn the wrestlers, it gets really interesting and it's a thing of beauty to watch. Joel didn’t know anything about Sumo, but once he learned the rules, he really enjoyed the experience. Joel and I even alternated betting on who would win. Luckily, I pulled out the victory and got a free dinner out of it.

The Yokozuna or grand champion right now is Asashoryu, a Mongolian who has dominated the past year winning all 6 tournaments in 2005. He lost the first won this year but ended up pulling out a playoff victory for this tournament in Osaka. There are a lot of foreign wrestlers and one of my favorites is Kotooshu, a Bulgarian who has the Ozeki ranking (just below Yokozuna). Unfortunately, he injured his leg earlier in the week, so when he faced off against the grand champion; he didn’t really push himself and lost without much struggle. Thus, the final match of that day was tad anti-climatic. Nevertheless, we had a great time and even saw this one wrestler get smoked in the face and splash blood all over himself and his opponent. After Sumo, we walked around Namba, a lively area of Osaka and then called it a night.

The following day we made our way back west and saw the largest original castle in Japan, called Himeji-jo. I had wanted to see this castle for awhile, as it’s the most complete extensive castle left in Japan. We walked along the compounds and then made our way up the very top of Himeji castle. The castle was gorgeous and definitely the best of the castles I have seen so far.

After Himeji, we visited the Osaka Aquarium. Not sure if its because I like seafood, or that I just cause I worked in a harbour for 6 years, but I really like Aquariums. The Osaka Aquarium was really good as they have some species of fish that I had never seen before. The aquarium also had a huge whale shark, four different types of penguins and all different kinds of marine life.

That night we made our way back to Osaka and went to Osaka castle at night. Osaka castle is a complete re-creation of the original. The re-created castles usually lack the history and aesthetic appeal of the originals, as they are made out of concrete and the insides are always museums. But the exterior looks always look gorgeous and Osaka castle at night looked stunning. We didn’t make our way inside, but took lots of night pictures and walked all along the castle.

On Monday we decided to go to Universal Studios Japan. I had decided to go on Monday thinking that since it was a weekday, it wouldn’t be all that busy. However, I forgot that it was also spring vacation, so the placed was packed and the lineups were really long. We ended up only going on only three rides, Jurassic Park, T2 and Spiderman. The Spiderman ride was really good and so was Jurassic Park- which I faintly remember from LA. Overall, it was a really tiring day because of the lines and, as expected, everything was overpriced. In the end, we couldn’t really decide if we really had fun or not. One of the problems was that the rides are so outdated. The Universal Studios in Japan is pretty much a carbon copy of the one in LA. But, the rides are all movies that played over 10 to 15 years ago, like Jaws, E.T, T2, Backdraft and Waterworld. It would be much better if they created something new for Japan.

Monday was our last day in Osaka and we ended up sleeping pretty early once we got back to the hostel, as we could barely stand after the long lineups. We had a really nice hostel that was small, had a lot of character and was in a great central location. The only problem was our bunks. Joel’s bed dipped down the middle, probably cause a whale of a person slept there before him. My bunk, for some reason had a slope. So if I slept to close to the edge, I would almost roll off the bed, I had to make sure I slept on the top of the slope, and thankfully the momentum never rolled me onto the floor. (Picture below: Our Hostel)