My Friends Invade Japan - Part 4 (Osaka & Nara)

On the 30^th of March, we woke up early to eat breakfast again. I made the guys a Japanese breakfast which consisted of potato and onion miso soup, chive and bean sprouts stir fry, fried rice, and broiled salmon. I haven’t had a good old Japanese breakfast in awhile so I was very pleased. I also had a bowl of nattou or fermented soybeans out on the table for my friends to try it. I enjoyed putting them on my rice, but the guys did not. The smell and the stickiness was just too much for them haha. After breakfast, we left Niihama and caught a limited rapid to Okayama station. It took about 2 hours, but we all slept on the train to kill the time. At Okayama, we transferred over to the Shinkansen train. It’s been awhile since I rode the Shinkansen so I was very excited. The shinkansen ride from Okayama to Shin-Osaka didn’t take too much time and we got to Osaka by 1pm. We decided to do lunch so we ate some Osaka specialty… Takoyaki or a rough English translation would be Octopus Balls. Now… I’m not a big fan of raw octopus because of the suction cups and just imagining it in my mouth just gives me the heebie-jeebies. But if its cooked and hidden in a ball of batter covered with hella sauce… then its all good. My friends and I asked a person at the information center for recommendations of good takoyaki nearby Osaka station and she showed us a couple. We ended up at a stand where we ate the takoyaki as we stood. It was a crackin takoyaki stand and it was crowded. I ordered takoyaki with hella green onions and mayonnaise and boy was it hella delicious. I’m definitely gonna get this again if I ever return back to Osaka. I hella recommend it for others! ;D

After our lunch, we toured around Osaka. We checked out American Town or Ame-Mura and people watched. We also checked out the stores there and took bunch of pictures of the Japanese take on American fashion, food, and culture. For me, the best part of visiting of American Town was eating at McDonalds and buying some 150 yen prized. During the last week of March and early April, McDonald had this campaign and sold all sizes of fries for 150 yen. Small, medium, or large… whatever it was… it was all 150 yen. Since I love French fries…. I could not let this offer go to waste. I bought some large fries with Brian for a snack and we were very happy. Why pay 150 yen for a small when you can get a large for the same price. This American mentality of getting your bang out your buck or quantity over quality was still strong in me. I believe its part of my American culture. Haha

After our tour of Osaka city, we went to check in at our business hotel were staying for the night. We booked our hotel the night before and we were all wondering where we would be staying at…. Because the price per room was like20 bucks and under… we very worried about why it was so cheap…. And we found out why when we got there. Our hotel was located in a pretty shady area and according to Brian… our room looked like the ones you see in those horror movies. Not to mention…. It was pretty shadynasty dirty. Haha But it was for one night and it was cheap so we went with it. We dropped out shit and headed out to Dotombori to do some sightseeing and get something to eat. We walked down the Dotombori shopping arcade and came across a sushi restaurant which had this buffet deal for 1500 yen. It was a kaiten-sushi and we wanted to eat some fish. We split into smaller groups so we could be seated quickly, and we ate our heart out. Brian and I didn’t mean to…. But we ended up having an eating competition. We ate so much that our stack of plates were hella high. I believe we ate over 25 plates of sushi. We were all hella full and wanted to walk around to burn some calories off and whatnot. We walked around and enjoyed nightlife Osaka.

We wanted to party so we looked for a bar orclub to do so. But…. Because it was a weekday… nothing was open. We were very disappointed…. And the bars that were open were hella upscale or they were one of the hostess bars. We eventually ended up at a Shakys Restaurant and try out their all-you-can-eat & drink deal for 1500 yen. We were all full from the sushi dinner we had early so it was a pretty ridiculous thing to do. Haha. We left Shakys after our two hours were up and we went searching again for a club or bar to party…. But like I said before… it was a weekday and nothing was open. It was very lame…. Only hostess bars were open and we were not into those. We ended our night by going back to our “horror movie” hotel. Brian, Rishi, Marlon, and I decided to look around the shady neighborhood of our hotel and took some pictures along the way. After we discovered that there was nothing open except for more of those hostess bars…. We went home to sleep with the ghosts that were waiting in our rooms.

The next day… on the 31^st, we headed out to Nara to go see the Big Buddha and say hi to some deer. We left our horror movie hotel at like 8am and took the limited train to Nara. For breakfast, we had some Mister Donut because the guys wanted their coffee and Pon De Ringu. We walked for like 20 minutes and once we found some deer in the distance…. We knew we were close to the Big Buddha of Todaiji Temple.

We took some pictures of the temples and shrines within the Nara Park. We were blessed with numerous cherry blossom trees in full bloom. We also took pictures with the famous Nara deer. Marlon-san bought some deer crackers and started feeding them. A bunch of them started surrounding him and trying to get his crackers. They tried to eat his clothe thinking he was made of the deer cracker. When I told him that the Nara deer bow to you before you give them their crackers… Marlon-san did so and had the deer bow to him. All of us noticed that the deer bowed to us when we had our hand up. I guess the deer assumed we had something in the air. But then… we all decided to something funny. It was mostly Marlon-san and Brian-san who did it, but they bowed back to the deer whenever they bowed to them. It was hilarious watching them and the deer bow back and forth. They were being so Japanese. I’m glad that I got a video of them doing it.

Once we bowed enough with the deer, we entered Todaiji Temple to check out the Giant Buddha. As always, I was amazed with the size of the great Buddha. Enormous and valiant as always. I think Todaiji Temple is one of my favorite temples in Japan. Not number one though ;D Anyhow, since it was a weekday… there weren’t that many people visiting the temple that day. Hence… there weren’t that many people lined up to go through the famous hole of enlightenment. This hole is located within the pillar and represents the great Buddha’s nose. Anyone who can go through it will reach enlightenment. Marlon, Rishi, and I decided to take the challenge and try to squeeze through the hole. At first, we were hesitant that we could actually go through, but we simply went for it. Marlon went into the hole first and it was a piece of cake. I went in next and it was hella easy to go through. Rishi went last and it was also easy for him. The three of us successfully went through the hole and we were now three enlightened dudes.

After being enlightened, we left Nara and headed back to Osaka to catch an okonomiyaki lunch. We found a restaurant near the station and we enjoyed our okonomiyaki. I got a regular okonomiyaki with cheese and mochi. I hella recommend this combo to everyone out there! It is the freakin bomb! Off the hizzle! After our lunch, we grabbed our stuff and went straight to our next location: Kyoto.

My Friends Invade Japan (Part 3 - Tokushima & Kagawa)

On the 29^th, my friends and I wake up around 7am to catch the first limited rapid train to our farthest destination of Shikoku: Tokushima. More specifically… Naruto city. We slept on the first train for hella hours and arrived in Takamatsu, which is the capital city of Kagawa prefecture. Kagawa is hella famous for their cheap, delicious, and very chewy Sanuki udon. They are basically the udon capital of the world! Anyhow, we did a transfer at this station and did another transfer at a boonie station somewhere in Tokushima. At this point, it was like 10am and it had already taken us 3 to 4 hours to get to Tokushima. We got on the next local and headed toward Naruto city. The guys were tired from the night before and we didn’t get enough sleep on the trains. Cuyler, Marlon, Rishi, and Brian were sitting on one side of the train and to me…. They looked like a band posing for an album cover. Haha

We arrived in Naruto city around 11am and take a local bus to go to our destination. Tokushima is hella famous for their Awa Odori Dancing, a citrus fruit called Sudachi, their unique style of ramen, and so forth. One of their main attraction is the Naruto whirlpools. My friends and I travelled for hella hours and came all the way from Niihama to see these whirlpools. We actually have never seen a whirlpool before so we were excited. Brian described our image of whirlpools the best by saying that it would be one giant toilet flush in the middle of sea. He was very excited that he was ready to go and swim into the whirlpool so he could take a bathroom break in it and be flushed away. Haha… We finally arrived at the whirl observation station and at this time… it was like 12:30ish? We were very hungry, but I thought hunger could wait since we were about to see some whirlpools!

We pay an entrance fee and walk under a bridge. We walked for quite some time and checking out the view below us. As we do, we are hit by bursts of winds. It started to get hella windy and cold as we walked closer to the whirlpool. After a 20 minute walk fighting the strong winds, we get to the main observation deck and see the whirlpool for the first time. And…. Our first reaction was…. WTH? We kept on staring down at the water and we kept on looking for a whirlpool…. After a couple of minutes, we noticed that the small swirls in the water were the whirlpools. We all imagined whirlpools to be very huge and would be swirling constantly in the middle of the sea. After reading so many folklore stories about sailors on the high sea and their battle with whirlpools….. I totally imagined a giant whirlpool that would engulf anything! When I heard there were boats that would take you close to the Naruto whirlpool, I was like that’s hella dangerous! “Why would anyone want to go close to one!?” But I now knew why it was possible to view the whirlpools so close…. They were small swirls that would appear briefly and disappear.
So my friends and I stood there little disappointed and looked for “good” whirlpools. When we saw a whirlpool that swirled longer than 5 seconds then that was worth taking a picture or video of.

We spent about 20 minutes doing this and after we had enough of the strong winds and the cold weather… we headed out of the observation deck to catch our bus. We all thought…. Wow…. Whirlpools are kind of lame. Along the way, we found an ad for Sudachi ice cream and seaweed ice cream. It looked disgusting, but I was determined to try it.

We left Naruto station and headed toward Tokushima city to catch some lunch. We ate a specialty dish which was udon served in a large wooden tub. I like to call it “tub udon.” Since it wasn’t enough, we decided to seek out for more food. We found CoCo’s Curry and I asked my friends to help fulfill a dream of mine. Four years ago, I visited Japan and I had CoCo’s Curry for the first time. Back then, I tried out a curry that had a spice level of 5 out of 10. From my memory, I was sweating and crying in terms of how hot it was. When I noticed that I was only suffering at level 5…. What would level 10 be like? So I had this weird desire to try it out whenever I got the chance to go to CoCo’s Curry. But it was my desire to share this level 10 curry with other people. My friend and I enter the store and we cram into a 4 seater booth. The waitress takes my order for a level 10 pork curry and asks…. “Is that all?” as she notices that there’s 5 other foreigners with me. She chuckles and walks away and brings my curry. We all grab a spoonful of the curry and take a bite. We all sit there in silence and go… “What the heck? This ain’t spicy at all…” Haha…. I guess level 10 was not as hot I would assume to be. The curry did have a small kick, but the spiciness was more of lingering feeling where the spice would stay around for awhile and dissipate. After finishing up some lame spicy curry, I left the restaurant saying to myself.. “What a lame dream that was….” Haha

We weren’t satisfied with our meals so I decided to show the guys some Japanese sweets. Cuyler needed some coffee as well so I took them to Mr. Donuts and had the guys try out some Pon De Ring. A very chewy donut with a sweet glaze. Their comment on the donut was a thumbs up! After getting an unsatisfactory feeling from eating the udon and curry and getting disappointed from viewing the whirlpools, we found one thing that was worthwhile! Thank you Mister Donut and Pon De Ring for being deliciously awesome! Glad it made our Tokushima adventure a little interesting. =D

We looked around the city more and after we realized that there was nothing else to do…. We took a train back to Takamatsu station in Kagawa. It took us about 2 hours and it was like 6pm when we got back. We got out of the station and I must say that I was quite impressed with Takamatsu. Usually, when you exit out of a station… there’s nothing nearby and nothing exciting to look at. But Takamatsu was amazing. The station is pretty large to begin with and the city looks like the future according to how my friends phrased it. If you check out the picture, you will see what we are talking about. The buildings were huge and something you would find in Tokyo or Osaka. We checked out a mall nearby, but discovering that most of the stores were closed. It was a Monday so it couldn’t be helped. We also found a street musician or singer singing her heart out and I felt so bad for her…. In terms of how bad she sang. She was very off key and her voice screeched. My friends and I agreed that she wasn’t the best street singer we have heard.

We left the station area to check out the city and we decided to do a cheap dinner. We went to Yoshinoya and had some beef or pork bowls. They were hella delicious and the best part was it was only like 600 yen! How awesome! I wish our Yoshinoya in the states were cheap and delicious as Japan. What happen to ours!? After getting our rice bowls, we went back to Niihama to pack up, rest, and get ready to go to our next destination.