Saturday Adventures!

I apologize for taking so long to blog my weekend adventures, but here they are!

Saturday morning I was going to get up early to meet Keith, Thomas, and Rosabel when their train arrived from Tokyo. They didn't call though, so I slept in a bit and then went and got groceries. I have mastered the art of riding a Japanese bicycle (pretty shaky) and it takes about 10-15 minutes to bike to the grocery store, and I enjoy the ride.

Rosa went to meet up with her cousin, so I met Keith and Thomas at Bentencho station. We subway'd to Osakako (Osaka Bay Area). After some lunch at the Tempozan marketplace & a dessert crepe, we wandered around the mall in search of balloon creatures! There were balloon displays everywhere, and we had a great time posing with them. After we were ballooned out, we took a ride on the Giant Wheel (a Ferris Wheel) - it was once the largest Ferris Wheel in the world, but has since been demoted. The view was beautiful - out into Osaka and around and across the bay.

We walked along the pier around to Kaiyukan - Osaka's aquarium. The setup was really neat...it was just a big spiral that you walked around that kept getting deeper and deeper into the ground. We saw some awesome aquatic animals and the famous whale shark. I think i was most fascinated by the large Manta Rays...they were incredible!

After Kaiyukan we went to Namba. We ran into Matt & Terry (other coops) and we all wandered until JP met us for some Osaka famous Okonomiyaki & Takoyaki. After dinner, we chatted and wandered some more. I left around 11pm - I didn't want to miss the last train, and was feeling like a quiet night. It was a lot of fun, though - to get to hang out with the other students, again!

PS - Picture links soon...