In Japan - Osaka

"A monk chants a prayer for donating passerby outside the gates of the Osaka Castle on Jan. 1, 2009."

There is a saying that if people from Japan were given a large amount of money that those from Tokyo would spend it all on shoes and clothes, while those from Osaka would spend their money solely on food. Well, I kept that in mind on News Years day as I wondered Osaka alone all day.

Starting off the day was different to begin with since it was New Years Day. Since being in Osaka I've been eating the hotel 800 Yen breakfast that is a traditional Japanese meal. And as I mentioned it being New Years Day, a special meal was in order.

It's hard to explain, but "little fish" as they call them, a piece of smoked fish, pork, pickled vegetables, soup and rice dumplings were a part of it. Almost the same as what we've been eating with a little different items.

After gobbling up my first meal, we grabbed the circle line train (this was it was impossible to get lost) in Osaka and hit up the Osaka castle first.

As I often mention with these ancient structures, it was amazing, but a bit disapointing since the inside was closed. I made up for that by getting some street food - yakitori - or otherwise known as a skewered meat, chicken or fish.

On the way back to the train it started to rain, so we opted to try hittingup the aquarium or kaiyukan, which is one of the largest public aquariums in the world.

Well, my map showed where the aquarium was (in the bay area of Osaka) but it stopped a good two miles off the map. Since this was unknown, we hit the southern most part of the Osaka circle line and started walking south west.

Roughly 10 minutes later I was using my best (read: worst) Japanese to get some help. Finally we got some help and when I asked if it was in walking distance a younger guy about my age said "far, far" which I took as no.

We then decided to grab a cab and things didn't get much easier or cheaper to say the least.

Eventually we found it and it was totally worth it. But before going in we grabbed some udon noodles and dessert.

On the inside, all the typical animals and fish, but it had a good amount of stuff I've never seen including a ginormous whale shark. It was fascinating.

After that, we found a subway/train station and put the old myth to the test of Americans cannot use them. It was actually really, really easy and we found our way back to Yodobashi and Umeda with no issues.

We tried to get into some crazy arcade in Umeda, but it was closed, so we hit up the famous food area in Osaka.

Since we've had a large variety of food in this trip so far except sushi, we grabbed some that would have cost more than three times as much in the United States. Each plate at this rotating restaurant was 100 Yen. At home, the fish would have easily been $5 a plate. You do the math.

We finished the night walking around and then I had to have one of my favorite meals before heading home for the night - takoyaki or fried octopus balls. Mmm.

Back to Tokyo for the remainder of the trip, although we have two more days on our JR passes, so that may change.