Taylr and his host brother |
Zach and Nozomi in Kyoto |
By Zach, Agatha, and Taylr
Zach Grewe: Today we went to Osaka Castle. It was really big and had a bunch of intricate paths and moats. We decided it would suck to try to attack it. We went up to the top of the castle and got some pretty crazy pictures. Nate Dimit and I tried on some Samurai armor and got some pictures of us "fighting". After Osaka Castle, we went to a large shopping street [Namba]. I had some "takoyaki", which is some octopus in a muffin-like contraption.
Agatha Reitz: Osaka is, like most of Japan, pretty amazing. Yesterday, after meeting my Osaka host family, we went out to a traditional yakitori bar(?) where I was served wave after wave of delicious (and unusual) fried things on sticks. Japan's food is like ... carnival food. My host family was very nice and explained how to take the train alone, and my host sister (8 years old) had to show me how to gauge when to switch trains.
Today was Oosaka Castle, which was huge and beautiful, and had all this gold gilding and a museum inside (with some very interesting things, like samurai armor) and a huge park all around it, which you could see the whole of (and most of Oosaka, too) from the top of Oosaka castle.
Taylr: After some downtime in Yokohama and a full day of Shinkansen madness, we are in Osaka. This morning we had to somehow get to the Osaka Castle Park by ourselves. My host sister only went with me part of the way, which involved riding the most crowded train ever. Afterwards she left me at the station, where I ran into Robert and Sam - and the three of us rode the train to the castle. The castle itself was absolutely gorgeous. Heather and I went to the top and took a ton of pictures, you could see Osaka for miles.
After that, we went to downtown Osaka where Sensei turned us loose for an hour. Heather, Libby and I went to McDonalds (Japanese McDonalds is the best - seriously), then went to go drool over an awesome pair of bright green rubber boots, I almost bought them. Soon after, we went to an arcade and did print club - which was ridiculously girly and confusing, but lots of fun. Right now, we're on the train heading for Nara and the Daibutsu. I'll write again soon..