Last stop: Osaka

So, after Kyoto, we traveled on to Osaka, which was actually near Lily’s old stomping grounds. I thought of her a lot over my trip to Japan, and was kind of dismayed when I realized how cheap it really would have been for me to go see her when she was still here. I haven’t seen her for over a year now. That’s sad. But guess what folks? Two months exactly from yesterday I will be back on Canadian soil. I might just kiss it. I do really miss home now, but it really won’t be long. AND I get to come back in my favourite Canadian season: fall! Yay! Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en, and then before you know it, its Christmas!

Anyways, back to Osaka… We drove into Osaka and went to Osaka-Jo, which is a cool castle. Actually, I was a little disappointed to learn that it is a reproduction which they’ve turned into a museum. The outside of the castle was beautiful, but the inside was rather blah. It was totally boring and uninteresting. I really wished that they had done reproductions of how the castle looked during its heyday on the inside. But at least the outside was nice.

Will it ever end?

So, after that, we were taken to a duty-free shop, which was a store of stunning rip-offs. There was nothing I would possibly consider buying there. How lame. Dad guessed that the tour company probably got a kick-back for taking us there. We were not impressed. Particularly because we had been told not to buy anything in the beautiful shop area of Kyoto, because we were coming to this duty-free place. I was bitter. Mom, Dad and I just went out and walked around the area, which itself was cool.

After that, they actually took us shopping at a better place where mom and I got some really cute accessories and things. I found a killer notebook also. We all know of my obsession with pretty writing books hehe… Dad pretty much just people watched the whole time, but that is very interesting when you’re in a major city in Japan. These people had style!

After that, we went off to dinner. We ate at a restaurant that was apparently really famous. I wouldn’t have guessed, although the food was good. I liked it. I snapped some pictures as we made our way back to the bus, which then, in turn, took us to our hotel.

We were very surprised when we reached our hotel to learn that it was actually this amazing tower hotel, and we were up on the 30-something floor. I don’t remember anymore really. The view was incredible from our windows. So beautiful. We hung out, and drank and chatted and played cards. Mom got really drunk, and at one point she tipped over. It was funny because she was sitting on a bed, so she didn’t get hurt or anything.

The next day we called Grandma and Shelly, because we hadn’t checked in with them all week. We went for breakfast, and had, by far, the best breakfast all week. They had espresso that was amazing. Dad was giddy with happiness. Haha…

Then we walked around near the sea, in a park area, At the sea park, various people in our tour group wanted to take pictures with us. It was funny. And the three cute girls who I mentioned before gave me a bracelet they made from clovers. So cute. I pressed it and kept it.

]

Finally, it was time to get ourselves back to the hotel. We loaded up, and went to the airport. We bade our tour group goodbye and mom got caught with a knife by security. It turns out she has a secret life as a spy none of us knew about. Its always the people you’d least suspect, isn’t it?

So that’s it. That’s our Korean tour of Japan. Once I get the pics up on the last few entries I’ll write about Itaewon. Sigh… Will it ever end? I want to get on with writing about my actual life now! Grrr.

Much love,

Aislign