where cider meets condensed milk: Osaka tastes like... a little Samurai warrior.

where cider meets condensed milk

Friday, August 04, 2006

Osaka tastes like... a little Samurai warrior.

In true Kibichuo fashion, I kicked off my new contract by being elsewhere. I spent 2 weeks on a Japanese course just next to Kansai airport, and it was fantastic. However, my English is now sliding downhill at a catastrophic rate. The first night there was a huge Top 3 (of something) festival, which involved lots of fireworks being set off from boats, and thousands of people crowded onto bridges. I haven't seen this many policemen since Naked Man festival, and their main duty was yelling into megaphones about which train lines were overcrowded as the entire world tried to get home at the same time.

I took this picture of the food area after I got separated from Karina and Serena for about 5 minutes. I never found them again, and instead was swept along with the crowds and did the lemming routine since it's hard to do much else. I stumbled upon a fantastic taiko and dance performance in a little shrine area bathed in the glow of love hotel "A Your in Provence". (You pay less for purposeful typos-- the Tuno/ Chikn effect, I suspect.) The proper "A Year in Provence" hotel is in Namba, and you could probably purchase Provence for the price of staying there a month.

On the weekend, I saw Osaka-jo Castle with Angela, but we were too cheap to taste a little samurai warrior. Or maybe too principled.

The museum inside has a series of Help-Me-Obiwan! computerized projections in diorama boxes telling the life-story of the samurai lord who built the castle. It seemed quite wrong, but George Lucas was inspired by Japanese culture for many Star Wars elements (or so my junior high English textbook says), so maybe he came to Osaka-jo, saw these amazing presentations, and ripped off the idea for his movie. George, we know your secret!

Here is where I would say something tasteless about Siamese twins or midgets... but actually we passed a pair of midgets (small people?) while cruising the Osaka Kingu fairgrounds, which were my first sightings ever in Japan. I felt momentarily bad about being such a heightist all the time.

Coolest place on earth-- Spa World! Yes, Onsenrach found her homeland(s). There are 2 floors of crazy and tacky themed bath complexes-- Europe and Asia-- plus a waterpark swimming pool and restaurants where you can legitimately dine in hot pink or blue dressing gowns. Europe was the women's floor this month, and included Roma, Atlantis, and Detox. We chatted with these adorable girls in Finland, which had icy pools, 2 saunas, and a polar bear motif. The men's floor includes India, no less than 3 Japan baths, and the great country of Islam. I know that Asia is a pretty big place, and Japan is the center of the universe, but...

posted by Raychaa @ 4:24 PM

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