Osaka part 1

Okay, even though I'm tired, I guess I'll provide ya'll with an update.

After spending the evening with some amazing friends I climbed onto my 12:30am bus to Osaka. The seat was terrible. The lady who sat next to me was fast asleep the moment we took off and kept on slowly inching her butt towards my end of the seat, making my seat smaller and smaller. As soon as I got on the bus I realized I had to pee but was wholly disappointed to find that the bus was not equipped with a toilet. In a country that has butt massagers on their toilet seats (among other various bells and whistles not generally associated with toilets back home) one would think that they could install normal toilets on a bus. But no. So I had to wait two hours until we got to our first rest stop. By about 4am I gave up trying to sleep (not only was there no room, but the bus was uncomfortably warm). By 7:30 we arrived in Kyoto and an hour later in Osaka. Finding my hostel was way easy (thank god) and all the workers here are very friendly and can speak English (not that it's a problem for me, but it is nice).

I had missed the 8am check in so I had to wait until 3pm before I could get my room. Grumpy, wanting a shower and a change of clothes, I walked around in search of a cafe. The streets were practically empty and I don't know if it was because it was 9am in the morning or because it was xmas eve (xmas here isn't a national holiday so no one gets it or the eve off but since the 23rd was the Emperor's B-day which is a national holiday, i'm thinking most people just went and took the 24th off as well) but there was no one about. A vast contrast to the busyallthetimenomatterwhattimeofdayornight lifestyle of Tokyo. I wasn't long in my search for a cafe and found myself in a nice, old Victorian style shop (not like a tacky Victorian style either) owned by this old couple and had some very nice coffee and raisin toast.

Not knowing what else to do and wondering if they would at least let me shower, I walked back to the hostel. When I had first arrived here there was only one older lady sitting in the lobby who said she was visiting from Australia. When I came back the second time however, it was packed. A couple, also from Australia, are here on vacation, three American girls and one American guy all filled the little kitchen area. All very nice people too. I got to talking to the three American's (okay one is actually from Canada but whatever) and found out that they are all on JET, working in Hokkaido. They were going down to Kobe to see one of the oldest/best preserved castles in Japan and wondered if I wanted to join them after finding out that I had nothing to do and couldn't check in until 3pm. My reply to the offer was "actually, yeah I would like to join you if you don't mind". Shower-less and still wearing the clothes of the previous day, off we went!

The train ride to Kobe (actually the castle is in Himeji but whatev) took a little over an hour. Unfortunately the main part of the castle is under restoration right now so we couldn't go inside. Bright side though, because it is closed not very many tourists were there crowding the scene. Down side, it was the coldest freaking day I have ever experienced in Japan. Bright side, there was a very sweet old lady who works as a volunteer tour guide for foreigners; therefore we got a free guided tour through the grounds and the parts we could go into, all in English.

The castle was really amazing, but sadly a lot of the buildings/mansions that used to be on the grounds were all burned down in the Meiji period because the castle was converted from living quarters for ladies and lords to barracks for soldiers. None of the original artifacts remain either but the castle itself is still wonderfully intact (even though it's being restored). Actually, when we got to the sight and saw all the scaffolding we thought that they were building some sort of modern building practically right on top of what we thought was the main part of the castle (turned out to only be just one of the separate towers) and were completely shocked. But thankfully we were wrong and the Japanese have more class than that.

After the castle we went into Kobe itself and ate some ridiculously good Kobe Beef XD. Couldn't help it, we were in Kobe so might as well go for it, right? And it was worth it. Then we set off in search of a cake shop that we heard was famous. Here in Japan people eat Christmas cake and KFC chicken for xmas. I don't know either. But alas! The cake shop was closed. Instead, we ended up going to this little tiny cafe that's owned by this opera singer and we had coffee and waffles! The lady was super nice and made some bomb-ass waffles, but I think we made her a little nervous (in fact I know we did cuz she kept on saying "sorry, i'm nervous". Can't blame her, if a bunch of foreigners speaking a language I didn't know invaded my little cafe kitchen i'd be a little nervous too). But it was all a good type of nervous and she sent us away with a gift of 和菓子　"wagashi" or Japanese treats.  

Now i'm sitting on my bed in my hostel, shower finally taken, clean clothes on, curtain drawn, personal light on, main light off writing this blog post alone cuz the other girls braved the cold again (i'm serious, it's C-O-L-D outside)... I'm staying in a mixed dorm room and one of the other inhabitants (the only male) just walked in... definitely staying behind my curtain.

Tomorrow there's some sort of Mochi making thing going on so i'm gonna go to that and maybe an aquarium and whatever else I can find to do around here. Maybe i'll go to Nara.

I forgot to bring my camera cord so I can't upload pictures until I get home.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jam