Lost In Translation Update : Osaka Fun

Basically: I reckon I should have cut Kyoto out of my trip and just done Tokyo and Osaka. This place was just too awesome.

Osaka is everything I expected Japan to be. Friendly, Crazy, Zany. It's all here. On Monday I wandered around the area near my hotel and ended up walking about 6km in the day. I scoped out the location of a couple of the bars in the lonely planet, got some awesome sushi and headed back to the hotel.

Monday night I walked up to a place called "Cellar" in search of live music. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be anything on the go so I went to a little bar called "Mojo" where they were playing awesome 60's music. Here I met the bartender Himano (He-man) and I was the only person in the bar. I had a couple of drinks before a Pommy girl called Ann and a chick from Chicago (unfortunately I have forgotten her name) walked in. I had some more drinks with them and then their mate Ben from Melbourne walked in. All of them teach english, as do pretty much every westerner in Japan and Ben was marking papers. A few drinks later and an Irish bloke and a guy from America walked in on a Visa run from Korea. We all ended up doing some shots, cranking up the guitars and drumkit in the back and just having a blast.

I don't remember how, but I seemed to make it back to my hotel in one piece. I was pretty rough most of the day on Tuesday, but I ended up going to the Osaka Aquarium and Imax 3D in Osakako. The Aquarium was pretty cool, they had a whale shark 12meters long and these massive, scary looking spider crabs. Pretty Impressive.

Tuesday night I went back to Mojo where I met Ryo, the owner, and his girlfriend. I had a couple of beers, discussed music with Ryo, then wandered out to get something to eat. I then headed back to the pub, which had filled out more by this stage, and met a girl called Rie who had a reasonable handle on english, but was learning french and she kept slipping into speaking it while trying to understand me. I pulled out the french word for Red which impressed her. I played a couple of games connect four with people in the pub then headed home to try and get some sleep.

I think because I was nervous I had a terrible sleep, only managing to grab about an hour. I checked out at 5am thinking it would take a couple of hours to get to the airport. Unfortunately I arrived 30mins later and now I have to wait until about 9.30 before I can even check in. Thank sweet zombie jeebus for free wireless internet. Today I jump I plane to KL, where I have an overnight stay before the next leg, leaving Malaysia at 9am Thursday morning.

I got plenty of photos of my adventures at Mojo Bar and Osaka, but I will have to put them up on flickr when I get home, with a bit of a wrap up.

See ya soon.