The Floating Gardens and Umeda

With a couple days off, I got to explore a little more of downtown Osaka with some friends, and I finally successfully avoided going back to the same place I'd been to three times already. Huzzah! We took a bus in, which was much slower than the train, but we were in no rush so it was a nice opportunity to chat as well as to get a better sense of where our home in Tempozan is in relation to the heart of Osaka. We ended up in the Umeda area, and our first big item on the day's agenda was to to check out the Floating Garden. It turns out that they use they term "floating garden" pretty loosely, as it really was just a super cool building with great views of Osaka, and the actual garden was on the ground underneath. 

We think there was some sort of festival or holiday coming up because these hanging decorations were everywhere

You could choose a paper based on what kind of wish you wanted to make, write something on it if you want, and then hang it up in the observatory

This was for couples to write their names on a lock, kind of like that bridge in Paris

The actual garden was really gorgeous too, but I'd argue that it didn't do a whole lot of floating

All these kids playing in the water reminded me of a summer day I'd guess about fifteen years ago with my sisters and cousins at Navy Pier in Chicago playing in some big fountain for nearly an hour

Our next stop was Yodobashi Camera, a big tech store. Mason wanted to get a pocket wifi, and we also explored the toy section, which had some bizarre finds.

I was pretty fond of these little mascots for some Japanese internet company

I'm pretty sure this is the cast of Armageddon. One of them is even bald, hey Bruce Willis!

I'll have to go back and get one of these for my uncle

And now, a random assortment of odd things I spotted in Osaka:

ewwwwwwwwww

100% off? I don't believe you.

Apparently this sign is a warning about young men who call older women pretending to be their grandchildren in order to trick them into wiring them some money or something

We then went through a strip of shops and restaurants, and on a tiny hidden side street found the Snack Donkey, an old-fashioned little bar where we stopped for a drink.

The next day we got lunch in the Tempozan mall, but not before happening upon this place upstairs with a bunch of animals. It was really unclear to me what exactly this place was, but it seemed like a sort of indoor petting zoo with turtles, tiny pigs, enormous rabbits, and birds, as well as cats and dogs.

The picture doesn't do it justice; these rabbits were three times the size of any others I've seen in my life

Later we went back into downtown Osaka and decided to catch a movie, do a little shopping, and have some dinner. At some point we found some street performers singing along to karaoke tracks and busking. We stuck around for only a minute two... I was not impressed.

We didn't notice until we were already leaving after our meal, but the restaurant we tried for dinner (or maybe the restaurant right next to it, not sure) had these really creepy manikins set up outside the entrance.

I'm glad we didn't notice these beforehand, I might have lost my appetite

It was back to work for me today and for the next four days (not that I minded, it's a fun job!). I won't be doing a ton of traveling then until my next days off, but we're hoping to head somewhere new when that happens. We very nearly went to climb Mount Fuji these past few days but the group ended up deciding that we weren't quite as prepared for that as we wanted to be. Ever since that though I've been dying to do it, and climbing season is basically July and August, so if not right away, look out for that post in the next few weeks. Until next time, matanee!