This last weekend Danielle and I, and a troupe of others (including some of the usual suspects), went to osaka for the Great Japan Beer Festival. Over a hundred beers, REAL BEERS, that we devoted an afternoon to tasting, and enjoying.
Being the Apple junkies that we are, we tend to find Apple stores wherever we go. And when we find them, we can’t help but go in and oogle over the fancy electronic gadgets. Even though there isn’t much left for us to oogle over (since we own or have owned most products in the Apple line), we still can’t help ourselves.
This latest stop was in Osaka. We were just walking around when we saw the shiny happy Apple logo. Our stop in Osaka means that we have now visited three out of the seven Apple stores in Japan. Perhaps we should make it our goal to see all 7 before we leave….
So I was supposed to write a post about Popeye’s in tokyo, way back when and it kind of sat in my writing queue forever. I had started a couple of times and it just wasn’t flowing. Then I decided to revive that post with some information about a couple of pubs we visited in Osaka, but this also did not flow. I will give it one more try with some company from the Sapporo brewery.
When we were visiting Osaka, we stayed at a hostel that was in the middle of a major park with some pretty awesome playgrounds. These are playgrounds that put playgrounds in America to shame. Clearly they have not been sued yet because a young child got injured on the equipment.
Aaron was eyeing up the slides right away. Unfortunately, we were rolling in at about 15 minutes before hostel curfew, so we didn’t have any time to spare playing around in the park. But, we knew we wouldn’t be able to leave without giving it a try.
While visiting in Osaka, we made a stop at the Tempozan Harbor Village Ferris Wheel. This was once the largest ferris wheel in the world, recently surpassed in 1999 by the London Eye. Since then, it has been surpassed by a few others as well. Even still, it was a pretty big wheel.
From the wheel there was a fantastic view of Osaka and beyond. It was a 15 minute ride, complete with audio commentary, in English and Japanese.
When we were back home I had often noticed the lack of compact cars on the road. Gradually, beginning in the late 1990’s, compact cars and sedans started being replaced by mini-vans, first, and then SUV’s. When we were on our road trip, just before we left, we drove our little Toyota Corolla and we were one of the few cars of that size on the road.
That is another difference I have noticed since coming here. Sure, the SUV and mini-van craze has started, but it hasn’t swept the nation as it did in America. Sure, you see some of them on the road, but compact and sub-compact cars still rule the road. And then there are some cars that are pushing the limit, in the direction of small, like the little blue car in the picture above. And, for some reason, that just makes me smile.
Right after we got off the train in Osaka, we wanted to spend some time sightseeing while it was still light out. The first, natural, place to go was the castle, of course. So, we found a locker for our luggage, hopped on the subway, and made our way over to Osaka castle.
One of the things I have been missing in Gifu, especially this time of year, are the trees. Gifu city is lacking in trees, especially the large full-size ones that are so impressive during the fall. As a result, I had felt as though I missed fall. It certainly got cooler, but I never had a chance to walk through the leaves. I hadn’t yet seen an impressive display of color. And, I began to feel like I had missed fall altogether and winter was well on it’s way.
Our weekend in Osaka gave me the fall that I had been craving. Fall colors, crunching leaves, and brisk air were all around and I soaked it up.