Day Three and Four

Osaka Day Three

 This is the Osaka Aquarium of Kaiyukan. Right next to it was a large shopping mall that we wandered through after and had lunch at. The aquarium featured such things as Japan's forest with otters, salamanders and more. It had animals from the Aleutian Islands, Monterey Bay sea lions, Gulf of Panama ringed tailed coatis, Ecuador rain forests, Antarctica penguins(with real ice!) Tasman sea dolphins, and animals from the Great Barrier reef, Seto Sea, Chile, and jellies.

 Here we are about to get eaten. 

 The coolest part was seeing the Tasman Sea dolphins because we got to see this lady feeding them. I also spent some time watching a mother and baby swimming together.

These two were pretty cool.

 

 This is a hammer head shark. He was notable because he was so fast it took me forever before I could get a picture. I finally got one right before we left.

 The aquarium is set up so that you circle one giant tank that contains this whale shark. Most of the fish are in this tank and there are a few smaller ones that loop around it like the otters and dolphins and jellies.

Here is another angle on the whale shark. I know the other is a little hard to see.

 At the Monterey Bay (CA) aquarium my favorite attraction is the jelly fish. While they are cool in Japan too, I must say I enjoyed the dolphins best here. In the Chicago aquarium I really like the beluga whales. Okay, I love the beluga whales. I went back to see their tank three times!

The next six hours of the day we spent walking around shopping malls. The insides of which look just as you would expect so here are a few of the outside pictures. 

 Just so you know Pachinko is a really loud arcade type game here where you play arcade games. We saw lots of them and their games while on our trip. We also thought this sign was pretty interesting....

 Here is one outside shot of a crab store/vending style restaurant and what the outside shopping areas look like. Cars and people just pile along. 

 This is a famous shopping center known as the canyon because it looks like that on the outside. 

 

Here is the canal that ran through one of the streets. Isn't it pretty?

It seemed that Osaka was full of shopping centers especially since we spent the whole day wandering four or five of them. 

 The evening got really crowded as you can tell. 

We discovered this little tucked away spot between buildings. Japan sure has small areas that are rather interesting to find.

Day Four

 Here was the day in my journal where I mentioned noticing that cars and buses turn their engines off at every stop light. We rode a few buses and it was always strange to hear the engine shut off in the middle of the road and then start back up. Chris pointed out that it would it be a bad thing for him to do in his car that has a habit of turning the "safety" on when he tries to start it and then he has to wait ten minutes before his car will actually start. It does not believe he is not a burglar. That would be bad to be stuck for ten minutes in the middle of the road. 

We visited the Tofukuji Temple and its surrounding gardens. 

 Here is the front entrance.

 A walk way through the gardens. 

 A typical set of stairs.

 One of the rock gardens. There was another larger one too. 

 Chris is looking through at the Buddha in there.

 This temple was known for it's Buddha statue and for this part of the garden. It is a large checkerboard in the ground. 

 I found this dragon painting above Buddha's head to be rather neat. 

And I just had to throw this in here. Here is a typical small street in Japan. If you look close you can see the motorcycle tail lights on the left hand side that just passed us. So...cars in the middle, motorcycles on the left, bike on the right, walkers on the side where they can fit. It also features a typical side walk as well. Sometimes the sidewalks actually bump up and are separate from the road, but they are all low because cars use them to park on when they want to reach a store. 

Millions of Torii Gates

 It was fun to walk through all the torii gates, but it was slow. Every now and then a couple of people would stop so they could clear the path before them and take a picture without the crowd of people in the background. Here we are waiting for these two to get their perfect shot. 

 Here is where I bought my own yukata to wear. Unfortunately I did not wear it that long since I insisted I take it off when Chris announced we were going back to the train station. He such long legs that even not in leg constricting clothes I have to speed walk to keep up with him. There was no way a train station was going to be manageable if I had to scooty scoot scoot. Plus we would miss all the trains. 

 This is the entrance and exit for the torii gates. 

 Amanda strikes a pose. My arms can't get up much higher. I love the colors of this one though.

 A side view of the gates complete with students heads.

 Here is the back of the yukata. I hope when I put it on myself I can do justice to this perfectly tied bow.

 Gates. Each one was donated by some individual and they stretch all the way up the mountain.

Here is the map showing how far they go. We only walked through the first two sections and did not hike this mountain. 

We next took a scenic train ride through the countryside. It was really called "Romantic Train" because it is romantic.

We went through a tunnel and saw some stuff like this.

Here is a shot of the actual train.

Coming back was one of the most crowded subway rides we had been on. It was standing room only with people shoved up against each other. I noticed one man miss his exit because he just couldn't get out. He had to shove past people at the next station and I assume take another train back to reach his destination. Chris and I were squished up against an edge and I had no room to even wiggle my feet due to rush hour.

We had one other super super crowded subway ride in another spot on a different day where I tried to not fall over on students around me since I had nothing to hold on to.