What a busy day!
We were up nice and early to get to have a look around Shounandai (Naoko’s home area) and then have a lunch of rice balls, pickle’s in sushi and dango (sticky rice balls in a sweet and sticky soy sauce, almost like teriyaki). A very delicious and perfectly Japanese lunch.
After lunch it was a rush to the station as usual but this time we were there with plenty of time, got an early train and made it to Shin-Yokohama about 40 minutes before our shinkansen (bullet train) was due to leave.
The fun thing about being in Japan is even when you are waiting in what would normally be a boring place, it’s all so different that you just can’t get bored. Wether it’s people watching (there are so many people to watch it becomes like a professional sport to keep watching everyone.) or looking in every random shop and market to see all the amusing and unusual items for sale (convenience stores are always an endless supply of entertainment! I found ears of sweet corn pre-cooked) packaged and sold in individual shrink wrapped packs!) So the 40 minutes we had to wait passed much quicker than it would have waiting at Wellington Railway Station!
We got on the shinkansen and it was off to Osaka at 300 miles an hour give or take a few miles. At that speed entire Towns speed by at the blink of an eye. It was way too fast for the GPS in my Samsung tab to keep up! Along the way we passed the Sanyo/Panasonic solar arch on the edge of Gifu. It’s a giant ark shaped solar array about 300 metres long and 30 meets tall that can output about 630kw of electricity at it’s peak times. A pretty impressive sight for the few seconds it takes to wiz past!
Once we got to Osaka it was time to check into the hotel, on the 25th floor of the Hotel Granvea Osaka (pictures of the view at the bottom) then freshen up and head out to dinner with Naoko’s dad Makoto, and our friend Eri who we know from Wellington ehow hadn’t seen in over a year! Makoto had made reservations at a restaurant specialising in food from Okinawa. I’ve never been that far south in Japan and had no idea what the food would be like but it was pretty delicious! A bit strange sometimes, our starters included boiled pigs ear, a chewy but tasty little dish. We were then serenaded by the owner and his singing music playing family. When I say family I mean the whole tribe! Even the smallest of the grandchildren were up on stage with a shamisen (traditional Japanese string instrument. Like a banjo but without any rednecks.) At one stage they got the whole restaurant up on our feet dancing around the tables (see photos if I can get them to work). It was great and one of the best parts was the Japanese concept of nomihoudai (aka, all you can drink for 2 hours!) The best concept ever.
After dinner we got breakfast on the way back to the hotel at one of those amazing convenience stores that I mentioned, and them came back to the hotel to hang out and spend time catching up with Eri.
All and all a great day and there will be much more to come tomorrow! I managed to get the camera connected to this tablet and copy some photos, now let’s see if I can upload them. If I can then look forward to some more tomorrow when we get into the real sightseeing!
For now, goodnight, or as they say in Japan – oyasuminasai!
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