Quite literally. Well, almost. Ok, dinner, breakfast, and lunch. In that order.
(Apologies in advance for the crappy iPhone photos. My camera needs to take a trip back to Nikon for some TLC.)
Last month I got to go to Osaka with Rob on his layover. A very short layover (24 hours) but it's amazing the amount of things (and food) you can pack in in a short 24 hours. We left on a Thursday early in the afternoon and landed Friday evening. The flight was about 10 hours long, but I was blessed, lucky, and receiving good karma, and scored a first class seat. Now, some of you may think, "A 10 hour flight for a 24 hour layover??!!?!?!? CRAZY LADY." Well, if you haven't traveled with a toddler, then you may not know that the flight was part of the vacation. Um... champagne before takeoff, movies, reading, sleeping, did I mention champagne? Cue Fergie song.
We landed at about 6:30pm and took the train to the hotel. And then quickly headed back out the door. Rob has been to Osaka quite a few times so he knew exactly where we should go for drinks/dinner/drinks. We started out at this little bar that's obviously the "post flight hangout amongst crew members" as indicated by the airplane poster hanging on the wall signed by many a crew member.
That night we also met another American that has been living there for the past 6 years teaching English and had just opened up a little store of what, I'm not so sure. Sorry. I do remember that his name was Eric and his Japanese girlfriend's name was Erica. Convenient.
{We almost ordered two of these.}
After we filled up on shochu and beer and okonomiyaki, we left to get more food. Ramen. Delicious, dream-about-it ramen.
After dinner we returned to the hotel for a few hours of sleep. The next morning we decided to go to the gym for a bit... and saw some interesting signage.
After not swimming in the pool, we headed out for the day, but not before checking out the sunrise. Land of the Rising Sun, most definitely. A spectacular sunrise.
We decided to take a walk to the main fish market in Osaka and then hop on the train/subway to the Osaka Aquarium. The walk was quiet and peaceful as it was pretty darn early in the morning.
I'm very happy we decided to go to the aquarium. It was HUGE, and awesome. The Japanese do nothing half-heartedly. The aquarium basically had one large circular tank that the entire rest of the aquarium wrapped around.
{A very large ferris wheel outside the aquarium that was closed because it was so windy/cold!!}
After the aquarium we trained it back to the Namba. It was just a wee bit crowded. Actually, it was so crowded it made me laugh uncomfortably.
We stopped at a little udon restuarant for more more more. I'm convinced a warm bowl of noodles is THE PERFECT meal for cold, cold days. Fairly certain I could live off ramen and udon for the rest of the days of my life. And I wanted to take a picture (naturally) of our delicious bowl of udon but as soon as it was placed in front of me I forgot and inhaled it.
{The owner of this udon restaurant looks exactly as depicted on his signage.}
After our delicious lunch, we made one final stop in Diaso AKA the 100 yen store AKA the Japanese version of the dollar store. Six floors. And finally, even though it was fairly early we went back to the hotel since Rob needed to sleep before flying all night.
For the flight home I was once again on the receiving end of good karma and ended up in first class. I mostly slept and waved to Rob as he was going back in the flight deck after his break. (They have 3 pilots on the longer flights.)
Oh, hello home! It was a beautiful clear morning and I was treated to wonderful views of the island. Pictured above is a really cool resort area (with lagoons) on the west side of the island. (One of those resorts is Aulani, the new Disney resort.)
And that's that - our whirlwind trip to Osaka.
Dōmo arigatōgozaimashita!
