Adventures in Japan

Social interaction!

Yesterday we went back to Osaka-jo. In the rain. It wasn't coming down all that hard, but we took umbrellas anyway. And we lugged them around with us all day. To our credit, we didn't poke any Japanese eyes out. That we know of.

This time we actually paid to go into the "castle". The outside is a concrete reconstruction of a castle that used to be on that spot, and the inside is a museum. The view from the top was nice, if a little hazy because of the weather, and the museum exhibits were nice enough, but mostly in Japanese. Which is only fair, I suppose.

Once the castle closed, we wandered over to the working holiday office for a party meant to introduce Japanese people that are planning to take a working holiday to people that have already taken one or are in Japan on a working holiday right now. We met a lot of nice people, and it was good to converse someone other than Tyler for a change (no offence, baby). The party finished off with a rock-paper-scissors game that was very, very fast. Ty and I were out after the first round (which took all of 5 seconds) but it was still fun to watch.

After the official party, pretty much everyone walked down the street to an izakaya (like a pub). The menus and decor reminded me of restaurants at home, except everything was somehow Japanese and cooler. There were a lot of things on the menu that I had never seen before (but at least they all had pictures), the waitress took our orders on an electronic keypad-type-thing, and the toilets were all futuristic and fancy. When I opened the door to the stall, the toilet seat cover went up by itself, and I think it talked to me. The seat was heated, and there were many buttons with many functions on the side of the stall, none of which I was brave enough to try. It flushed itself, too. Now that's progress!

As much as we enjoyed the izakaya, we didn't eat much. We were a little worried about our cash situation. We had tried a few times over the course of the evening to get money from an ATM. Even though they had American Express and Visa Logos on them, they wouldn't take our cards. I'm hoping the only reason we were having trouble was because the ATM's in convenience stores (or combini) are meant for Japanese cards only, but it is a little worrisome...

Eventually we ended up drinking in a park with the last of the stragglers. I tried happoshu, which is a beer-like drink made with sea water. In Japan, beer is taxed based on its malt content. Because most of the malt in happoshu has been replaced with who-knows-what-else, the tax is a lot lower and the drink is way cheaper. Nothing wrong with that. It gets the job done. Kind of like wine from a box. We hung around in the park just long enough to miss the last train of the night, so we walked with one of our new friends back to Umeda (where our hotel is). It wasn't that far, but are we ever tired this morning! That didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night again. Sigh.