Osaka Castle and More Shinsaibashi

Two blog posts in two days? I've been busy, y'all! Yesterday was my first day off in a while, so a bunch of us spent the afternoon checking out Osaka Castle, and half of us did some shopping and had a delicious dinner in Shinsaibashi in the evening.

The moat around the castle

Ice cream break, of course!

By washing our hands in this well, we also cleansed our souls

Claire was nice enough to clean my soul for me

This informative man told us all about the well, then insisted we take a picture in front of a big rock with our arms spread out wide

"Alright kiddies, field trip time! Everybody put on your field trip hats!"

The castle

Entrance to the castle, which is now a museum

The museum had really neat little videos playing in these miniature sets

The view was incredible!

On our way out about 400 people came by holding signs, not sure what for

We then made our way to Shinsaibashi. One of the first shops we stopped in was some sort of cultural store that had things from India, Africa, Mexico, Pakistan, Native American things too.

My worst nightmare

Whenever I see giraffes I always think of my sister :)

After that we wandered down the row of shops some more and ended up at Uniqlo and H&M.

Bi King, eh?

GREAT

So many wires in the air

Loving the gaudy looking karaoke places

This big menu outside a restaurant seemed particularly Japanese to me

Yeah, I'm definitely looking to be satisfied HARD

Mizzle

Free Flow History, y'all

The Pagemaster!

Claire took us to this awesome place for dinner

Their Friday special is a roast dinner, with "mush potatoes!"

The restaurant was open to the outdoors, lovely weather!

I was super hungry so as an appetizer I got a mini pizza. While I won't be finding cheddar or Brie any time soon, it's been surprisingly easy to find good cheesy pizza in Japan

The roast dinner! Very delicious, home-cooked meal

Shinsaibashi at night

For one whole stop we had the train car TO OURSELVES AHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kaigandori House at night!

This is where we park all our bikes

Alright I'm literally running out the door because some of us are heading to Kyoto for the day. Expect a post about that in the next day or two. Woooooo!