Saturday: Osaka and Shopping

Saturday morning I woke up early, took a shower, ate a quick breakfast then hurried to the train station. Once I got there, I hopped right on the train (perfect timing) and then rode the train to Hikone, where I met one of my friends and we both then bought our tickets to Osaka and got on the next train south.

The trip to Osaka is about two hours long and twenty dollars each way. We got on the train and talked, and when we finally arrived in Osaka, we noticed that it was pouring out.

The worst monsoon to ever hit Japan!

Okay, well, I don't know about that last part, but I sure wasn't excited to be walking all around Osaka in heels in the rain. Thank goodness I brought my umbrella.

Oh yes, Osaka is a modern city, kind of like a mini Tokyo, so my friend and I decided to dress up in normal Japanese clothes. See my Tokyo blog for more information.

When we got to Osaka, we decided to first to a small lunch, which consisted of two tiny waffles and some tea at a teahouse. Once we finished, we looked around the shops in the train station then braved our way outside.

We crossed a very busy street and started walking down the sidewalk, but eventually, we were getting a little too wet for our comforts (we even had our umbrellas) so we turned back around and decided to stick relatively close to the station.

First, we went to a very big shopping mall right next to that station. It is about 10 floors, with the top floor being a restaurant, and a majority of the center one particular store: Comme Ca. (Which is French for "like that") I liked a lot of stuff, but I wanted to stay relatively on a budget, so I ended up not buying anything from there.

We went to this one store, where I ended up buying a vest with a fringe and a pair of shoes with really high heels and some fringe. For some reason, the Japanese love Native American style clothing. Fringe, leather and feather. Then, they also like cowboy clothing. Cowboy boots, floral dresses and jean jackets. There are more American clothes here than in America. Yet, it's very Japanese.

To be completely honest, it doesn't make that much sense to me either.

After our first purchase, we headed up all of the floors and mostly just looked around. After we had finished the entire mall, we then headed back to the station and then found the "Chika Umeda" or the Underground Umeda shopping mall. There, we explored the vast two levels that were just filled with various shops and restaurants. We did some more shopping, including some more "Western" clothes, another pair of shoes and then we also went to a store that reminded me of Claire's. It was a store with lots of accessories such as jewelry, headbands and bracelets. I got some stuff there, and then we both decided that we were wiped.

On our way back to the station, we saw a McDonalds, and decided to celebrate July 4th, (again) and ordered ourselves some cheeseburgers and fries.

Second best burger in my life!

After McDonalds, we headed back to the train station, and we just managed to make it onto a train that was heading back to Hikone. The train was already going much slower than usual, and at a random city, the train stopped completely. We sat on the train for nearly an hour until we started moving again. We never found out the reason for the stop, (or maybe we did, but we couldn't completely understand the conductor) but I would like to assume that it was because of the heavy rain. The trains have always been a little late when it's raining really hard.

And so, after another three hours on the train, we managed to make it to Hikone. my trip wasn't over yet though, I swiped my paid ticket, then went back in with my card that I use to get from school to home and vice versa. Once again, I just managed to jump on a train before it left, but once again because of the rain, the train went very slowly and took twice as long to complete the trip.

So, Osaka was great, even though we didn't get to experience much of it. I plan on focusing most of my time on Kyoto and Nara for sightseeing, which will be happening within the next few weeks.

More soon. Sunday was just as exciting!!!