Robot Claw

Finally, deer!

June 2nd, 2017

Yesterday we went to Nara. Originally we were going to visit Universal Studios Osaka but for arcane reasons changed our minds. Besides, there’s no deer at USJ!

We’ve been here a few times before, but it’s so much fun we were obviously going to go again. The deer are more abundant than ever (as are the – mostly Japanese – tourists) and we fed them many biscuits and made a lot of friends.

Of course it’s not all deer. Nara is a beautiful place with temples and parks all around.

I reckon a photo of the above may even be on the blog from years back?

But mostly this place is about the deer. If you like them as we do, you’d love Nara 🙂

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Dotonbori and Den Den Town

June 1st, 2017

The biggest tourist attraction here is a shopping street called Dotonbori. It’s famous for its restaurants and the elaborate signs that most of them use to attract customers.

The crab is animated, and the fugu lantern is apparently decades old. The most famous sign though is this one for Glico candy:

It’s so famous it’s apparently an icon of Japan to the Japanese! It’s not original though; this is a recent LED replacement. But the art is the same 🙂

We of course visited Dotonbori in daylight, but you can imagine how it would look at night. Sadly we can’t do everything, but see below for an idea of how attractive this street would be with everything lit up.

A short walk away is Osakas electronics/otaku district called ‘Den Den Town’. We spent hours there and sunk more than a few ¥ into the local economy!

And we ate local cuisine 😉

When we got back to the hotel there was a candle festival going on! The streets were lined with ‘1000000’ candles (so said the sign, but I’m deeply skeptical) and many art installations based around candles. It was very pretty.

Here’s a shot of a restaurant just near the hotel to show how beautiful everything looks all lit up! I’ll have to go out and take some photos in Tokyo when we get back…

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With The Fishes

May 31st, 2017

Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan is a very popular tourist destination for good reason, and that’s because they have – in maybe the biggest tank I’ve ever seen – whale sharks on display!

I think they are juveniles, but even then they are car-sized. There’s two of them, swimming slowly with hordes of fish, sharks and rays. The aquarium is designed so you continually circle around the giant tank, and although the water is crystal clear the tank is big enough that you can’t see the other side and the fish seem to swim out of an abyss.

There are many other displays as well, and I was particular taken by the seals 🙂

Not to mention the weird little guys (like this blenny) in the ‘fish face’ exhibit:

We spent a few hours here and we’re very impressed. If you’re ever in Osaka (and like fish!) don’t miss it.

KLS’s dinner was the above double chocolate waffle. The remainder of the day was spent idly wandering the Osaka CBD and getting involved in the usual madness…

A very KLS-centric post today! I’ll try to get more photos of me tomorrow 🙂

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Osaka

May 30th, 2017

Yesterday we took the bullet train to Osaka, a very comfortable trip that took about 2.5 hours speeding along at about 300 km/hr.

The weather was lovely (as it has been every day) but even better it was a clear day and we got a spectacular view of Mt Fuji!

We’re in Osaka several days and have a lot planned. Yesterday we visited the famous castle, just south of the city center.

We walked eight flights of stairs to get to the top, but it was worth it for the view!

Afterwards we explored the area close to the hotel (well, the multi-story game centers in the area…) before being absolutely blown away by our room:

It’s enormous, on the 29th floor and has a bathroom about as large as our entire room had been in Tokyo! Here’s some of the view:

This is Bernard-level comfort here 😉

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Broadway

May 29th, 2017

I just wrote a lengthy post but the app I used to blog from my phone crashed and it was all lost! So here’s an abbreviated version…

Yesterday we spent the day at Nakano Broadway mall, a Mecca for fans of anime/games/manga/toys etc, filled with shops that look like this;

And this…

We’ve been many times but it gets better every trip. It’s not for those with shallow pockets though; I think as the awareness of this place has grown so have the price tags!

I saw countless amazing things but none more so than Japanese imprints of the FF books I collect. That deserves its own post in the future though; watch for it!