The first day was pretty much nothing but going home and going to bed. It's actually great, because it's easier to adjust to the time difference.
The second day, I went to Osaka with my mother to get the Japan Rail Pass. Those of you who live outside of Japan (even if you are a Japanese citizen - but I guess you'd need a greencard) should definitely take advantage of this. You can get the pass for either 1 week or 2 weeks, regular or "green" (premium?) and use the JR system all you want. You can't use "Nozomi," which is the fastest bullet train, but "Hikari" is good enough. I went to Tokyo, Yamaguchi, and all over Osaka with this pass. The round trip to Tokyo alone can cost around ￥２０，０００but the rail pass was only ￥２８，３００.
On Saturday, I met up with a friend of mine from college who's been living in Japan for the last 4 years. It's kinda weird having an American friend take you around Osaka, but she knew it much better than I did. She first took me to a new aquarium. The area had a lot of new buildings and such because Osaka was trying to compete with Beijing to host the Olympics. I can't remember the last time I was in an aquarium but it was kinda fun. On the way to the aquarium, she told me about her temp job, in which she checked to see if the translations between English and Japanese made sense. It was for a new translation device that some company is developing. The device sounded great, but the sentences were strange. One sentence she told me was, "I heard the men in Singapore are the second best in the world." Makes you really wonder... The other one was "Excuse me, you got some ice cream on your back. Would you like me to wipe that off for you?" Now, why would anyone get ice cream on their back???
Can anybody guess what this building is? After the aquarium, we went to this place...I heard that some people stop by thinking it's part of Universal Studios nearby, but its' not. It's not a candy factory, either. It's a waste management facility! A famous Austrian architect designed it and Osaka spent a ton of money to pay him as well as build this darn thing. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but there are several golden balls that cost the residents a lot of tax money! Yikes! but it's cool looking and it didn't smell one bit.They had a tour, but my friend didn't know that she needed a reservation. We were asked where we were from and she told him "California." Of course, the man thought that she's from California and I'm her interpreter. In any case, he let us in without an appointment. Now you might wonder why she took me to a garbage dumpster. This place was really, really cool. Kind of a different "sight-seeing" experience. We learned about general waste management systems and how the facility works. It was actually kind of exciting watching this big crane thingy (like a gigantic UFO catcher) grab a whole bunch of trash and dump it in the furnace.
For dinner, we went to Shinsaibashi and she took me to this teeny little Okonomiyaki place. Okonomiyaki is a famous Osaka cuisine (?). It's kind of like a pancake with special sauce. Very tasty. This place was amazing! The owner and his son were a lot of fun and had good sense of humor. Their restroom sign says "Meeting room." They have a sign outside that says "There is no substitute for Okonomiyaki -Beethoven." My friend and her buddies all call this place "Beethovens" because of this sign out front. The owner has been all around the world and knew a little bit of just about any language. He called the guys across the street (they own a Takoyaki stand) "my (crazy?) bitches." Okonomiyaki was sooooo good...I went back for lunch later that week.
We had to have dessert...she took me to her favorite parfait place. I wish I could show you guys the picture...I had Mont Blanc Pudding Parfait. Huge! Yummy.
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