No lab today! Instead, Osaka again!
I was supposed to make the 9:14 train from my station to meet Prae on some other connecting train. But like the idiot I am, I forgot to put some extra cash in my wallet and only had about 1000 yen, which is barely enough to cover transportation costs. So I ran back to my home stay, missed the train, grabbed some cash, realized the next train was coming in fifteen minutes, tried to send Prae a text, realized that I had ten minutes to get to the station (that's how bad I am at texting on a number keypad with no predictive text) and made a run for the station. As it turned out, Prae had also missed her train, so I thought I was in luck. But As it turned out, not really. I had three transfers to make, and as fate would have it they were all poorly timed. I ended up getting to the station half an hour after Prae.
I said my apologies, and bought a day pass for Osaka that covered the cost of subways and entrance fees to a lot of cool places around Osaka. Prae's main objective in coming to Osaka was to visit the Apple Store, because her laptop charger had died. So we headed off to the Apple Store where we had to wait and wait. She made an appointment, but they still ran late and we thought Japan was always punctual. Charger in hand, we met up with a few guys in the program who were also in Osaka for the day and went on a short (emphasis on short) boat cruise in Namba on a dirty river. It was an underwhelming experience. I just kind of laughed to myself because the tour was pretty terrible. But our pass paid for it, it was a sunk cost so I didn't really mind the awfulness of it, I just found it amusing.
By this time, Prae and I were starved, so we parted ways with the boys and went to go grab some grub. Okonomikaki! We split okonomiyaki and Yakisoba. Yum. Yum. Then off to Osaka castle, where we met up with the boys and visited the museum and got to climb our way to the viewing platform, oh so pretty. We actually didn't spend too much time in the mueseum/castle because we had a train to catch. There was this silly choo-choo train car thing that periodically drove around the castle and we had half an hour in the museum before catching the last train ride. The train ride was awesome, by the way.
I forgot to mention the awesome slide. This is the awesome slide
Next we went to the sea side. I saw the ocean for the first time since leaving home. Oh, Pacific, how I've missed you. A bit choppy, but it was around dusk so everything was glowing. Very pretty. Then we went to the top of a tall tall building (also thanks to our pass) and looked around. Pretty. Prettier than Osaka castle pretty.
On the ferris wheel of the ferris wheel
By now it was dinner-ish time and the boys were craving okonomiyaki and the girls were craving ramen (which is what the boys had for lunch) so we went our separate ways again. We were all supposed to meet up to ride the big red ferris wheel at Umeda and go to the top of the floating garden building, but the boys found a bar and got a bit detained. So Prae and I went on ahead without them. The view from the tall tall buidling, 173, was gorgeous. We had an amazing view of the city lights from the huge pane glass windows and the rooftop walk. So pretty. Then off to the ferris wheel, which was fun! Also a beautiful view. By now it was pretty late and I had a long ways to go. There was a bit of running and missing of connecting trains, but I made it back before midnight.
To sate my Pake-ness, some accounting. The pass cost about 2000 yen. The entrance fees of the places we visited alone was 3600. Adding the use of the subway is about another 1200 to 1500. All in all we made out like bandits. Cheyeah.
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