Thursday, April 3 - Osaka and Himeji

Before leaving Osaka in the morning, we decided to check out a place called Namba. Apparently it is supposed to be the fun / party district of Osaka. We checked out, went to the station, and shoved our stuff into a locker. Namba was a pretty cool place. There were two streets that ran down the district with a really nice river between them. A trip to Namba and a walk down the river would be a perfect date for any young person. Much better than the sights of Tokyo. Namba felt a lot like Kabuki-cho, but without all the creepy people. Of course, it was pretty early in the morning. The only people out were probably those who didn’t want to go home after partying all night. We walked and walked, eventually ending up in Shinsaibashi. There was shopping, shopping, and more shopping all the way from one station to the other and beyond. It was pretty crazy how much there was within that small span of city. Just out of pure coincidence, we ran into Taiki, one of the kids from the youth hostel. We talked for a bit and exchanged numbers. He is heading north while we are heading south. Shortly thereafter we returned to the station and bought shinkansen upgrades to Himeji.



We arrived at Himeji around noon-ish. The locker this time was not big enough for my umbrella, but I really wanted to ditch it as the weather was clear. Using my super powers of tallness, I reached up and shoved my umbrella on top of the stack of lockers. We grabbed a map and departed for the castle. Himeji really doesn’t have anything else besides the biggest castle in Japan. You could see it from miles away towering over everything in the city.



In front of the castle there was a huge grassy park with kids playing and families picknicing. We laid down on the grass and gazed up at the castle for a while.



A small girl went running by, stopping dead in her tracks staring at us. Vaso waved and said “konichiwa” to her. She went running away. Vaso turned to me and said “I think I scared her”. We turned around and looked back to see the little girl run up to her mother and let out a high pitched cry. “I just made a little girl cry just by saying hello!” says Vaso. I just laughed and said that I made my fair share of kids cry at the daycare for the same reason too.



The castle was really cool. The inside of it has been preserved so it is just like it was 300 or so years ago. Everything is built out of wood. The floor creaks, it is really dark, and a little cold. We climbed up 7 or 8 flights of stairs all the way to the top. There was a little shrine and you could see the entire city by looking out of the little windows. I love high places in Japan.



As there is not much else to do in Himeji, we grabbed bento and ate it back at the park. There were some kids playing soccer nearby whom I almost joined. My opinion of kids has completely changed since Niigata. We decided that it would be best just to head on over to Hiroshima while it was still daylight in order to find a place to stay. This time we bought a non-reserved ticket for the shinkansen. There are 3 cars on every shinkansen where the seats are a free-for-all. Whether you can get two together depends purely on luck. It is also cool because you can ride on any shinkansen towards your destination, not just one at a specific time. We first found two seats next to each other, but upon sitting down realized that it was the smoking car. I hate Japan for still allowing smoking indoors. I went on a reconnasance mission and found two seats all the way in the front. Vaso was super pleased because there are also electric plugs in the very front and back seats of each car. He was finally able to charge his phone.



Once at Hiroshima we called up the local hostel and found out that it was only $23 a night. Cool. We soon found out why. It took us about an hour to find a bus that headed in the right direction, then when we got off soon found out that we were on the wrong street. A nice girl working at a nearby cell phone shop pointed us in the correct direction. We once again got lost. I ended up trusting Vaso’s judgement of climbing up this massive hill which ended up being correct. So this hostel is in the middle of nowhere and on the top of a mountain. The instruction sheet said nothing of that sort! They should just say “take a taxi to the hostel.” Anyway, we checked in and threw our stuff in our room. This time we were rooming with an old man and a guy from Germany who was not very social. We asked the girl at the front desk (who was pretty cute and became a topic of conversation later on) where the nearest place to eat was. She told us Okonomiyaki was the only thing around the area. Blah! Hiroshima really is like living in the country! We decided to deal with it and had okonomiyaki again.



The place was really small and everyone seemed to know each other. We got caught up in conversation with the little old lady beside us and got pictures with everyone in the store. Then two of the businessmen told us to sit down and drink with them. We obliged and stayed until the store closed. We talked about all sorts of things from school and where we live, to the recent politics of Japan and the USA. They ended up paying for our drinks and more food. I love Japanese people! We hiked back to the hostel and got some shut eye.