Incheon Airport is very pretty. Christmas decorations!
On the flight to Japan, there were hardly any people on the plane!
Our meals. Pretty yummy!
Arriving at Kansai Airport:
I was very proud of myself for getting us all the way through the airport, 2 subway rides and a 15 minute walk through part of a busy area in Osaka to our hotel with my very limited Japanese:
Very quiet subway:
Getting off at our stop and stepping out into a huge crowd of people!
Everything's in this kind of indoor/outdoors shopping plaza in the main and busiest streets, I guess cuz it rains and snows a lot:
Even the street cones are cute!
So happy to finally find our way:
Our adorable hotel:
The street outside our hotel. So clean!:
After we drop off our bags and rested our legs for a bit, I use the pay phone to call my friend, Taekwoo, who lives in Kobe which is just under an hour away by subway. He is supposed to meet us at the hotel around this time, but he's late. He is going to give us a tour of Osaka and Kobe.
Walking through the streets of Osaka:
I think this is a crab restaurant. The huge, mechanical legs jerk up and down to entice customers:
We find a tourist attraction, a museum-place that's like an indoor village with recreated scenes/shops/things to do from the past:
Outside:
Inside:
Okonomiyaki (fried squid balls with a delicious flaky outside and yummy sauce, also a popular street food in korea!):
One of the palm reading men had a super old photo of SS501 (korean boy band) that he took with them!
Afterwards, we walked through Chinatown and around downtown Osaka where all the ritzy shopping centers and department stores are. It was late so most of the stores were closed, but we used the bathroom in one of the buildings :)
Women walking around in kimonos:
Waiting for the subway, which is precise down to the second!
A women's only car, on account of the excessive incidents of perverts groping women when the subway is packed. Ick!
According to Taekwoo, the most famous donkatsu place in Osaka. It was the best I ever had in my life! The meat was SO THICK and JUICY and the batter PERFECT. Apparently, they fry it at low heat for a long time so that the outside doesn't burn but the meat cooks thoroughly.
It was high up so we had a great view:
Dessert at, according to Taekwoo, the most famous cheesecake place in Osaka. I don't think there's cream cheese in it and it tastes nothing like American cheesecake (think NY) cuz it tastes like delicious salty cheese baked thick onto sweet bread.
A cool parking structure! All machine operated.
Then he took us on a tour of Kobe, the city famous for the beef, which is not very far and also where he happens to live (Taekwoo attends Kobe University). Osaka is a port city and Kobe and Osaka both have great scenery.
Up in a high tower for tourists. I forgot what it was called but it was very romantic and there were couples making out in these booths next to us. AWKWARD.
The tower closed about 15 minutes after we got there -.- but the bottom floor had a bunch of cool decoration (?) things to look at and there was nobody in sight!
Whew! Okay, that was Day 1... @.
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