Osaka (Kansai part 2)
So it’s just about a week to go now before I have to go back to Sweden. I’m thinking of buying space for extra luggage for my trip back home because there is a lot of stuff to bring back… and on top of that I want to buy some more stuff! The alcohol here is crazy cheap. Yesterday, we had dinner at David’s place. Asami made nabe and David made some Philipino chicken which was awesome. To this, we drank umeshu. You can buy a two liter pack for about 750 yen and that very cheap. In Sweden, alcohol is really expensive so I was thinking of bringing some home with me so I don’t have to care about buying that much for parties when I get back. There are bottles of wine for about 300 yen (750ml) as well. It’s not like it’s the best wine or so, but it still tastes like wine.
Tomorrow’s my last grammar and vocabulary test. Hopefully I’ll score well on this one as well. On Wednesday we have tests in speed reading and listening comprehension but other than that, we’re all done! Friday is our last day here at Nihon University and on by Saturday morning we have to take our belongings and get out of these apartments so they can clean up after us and prepare for the next term. I’ve finished written all my reports as well so I’m now officially done with all of them. For some reason two of the reports are about food. I think Kyle’s influence on me is greater than I ever thought!
In any case, back to Kansai! The hotel we stayed at was in Osaka. The good thing about Kansai is that Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kobe are all close to each other. We didn’t go to Kobe though, but that’s alright. It takes about 30 minutes by train from Osaka to Kyoto and to Nara which isn’t that bad at all actually! Osaka is well known for its comedians and business. We didn’t go around that much in Osaka. Asami has an old childhood friend living in Osaka and who’s working at an expensive Izakaya.
After our trip to Nara (still Saturday), we went to check-in at the hotel, rested for an hour or so and then we went out on our adventure to look for this Izakaya. It took quite a while actually. Osaka is like a jungle if you’ve been living in Tokyo for three months. It’s hard to find where to go and so on and even with Asamis cellphone with GPS, it took us about 2.5 hours to get there. On our way there, we ate some takoyaki. Osaka is well known for okonomiyaki and takoyaki and the place we ate at was awesome.
So anyway, after wandering around for a while we finally arrived at the Izakaya and it was a very nice place indeed. The atmosphere was really good and we got to meet with Asamis childhood friend Yui. She seems to be a person full of life and speaks in Kansai dialect. We ate some food, drank some alcohol… and it wasn’t that much at all but the price came up to like 4000 anyway, expensive indeed but still a nice experience.
The next two days we spent in Kyoto but we stayed in the same hotel in Osaka until Monday. So during Sunday evening, after our first trip to Kyoto (will report about Kyoto soon), we went to a real nice Okonomiyaki place. Since there are a lot of Kanto people went to Kansai during the three day holiday, the line was quite long to get in, but it was worth the wait. The okonomiyaki was excellent and we didn’t even have to do it ourselves which you usually do when eating at okonomiyaki restaurants. Okonomiyaki is probably one of my favorite foods and I love to make okonomiyaki as well. I’m a specialist, so to speak!
Osaka feels a bit more like Tokyo mostly because of the night-life here. There are streets which looks quite similar to Shinjuku’s Kabukichou. I’ve also come to notice that Kansai people tend to not line up that well when entering the train. Surely they line up before, but once the doors open it’s like a crazy rush towards the door and no one seems to care about the order.
Compared to Tokyo they also stand on the right side when riding the escalators while Kanto people stands on the left side. It was quite funny because you could distinguish which people who were from Kanto and which ones who were from Kansai.
