Japan Trip Part 4 - Giant Moving Crabs and Blowfish

I am still writing about day 1 of our Japan trip! On my last post, we finished lunch after a much anticipated morning of pokemons and toys. When we finished lunch, it was around 3pm, and we were surprised by how much we have accomplished. (Randy and Curtis's Japan to-do list basically only consisted of going to the Pokemon store and looking at toys. So they basically crossed everything off their list)

Curtis and his new purchase

I read in my map that there is a neighborhood in Osaka called Matsuyamachi (松屋町). It is supposed to be an 'off beat area that wholesales and retails old fashioned toys and candy'. When we arrived it was raining lightly. The street was very empty, lined with shops that looked like the dollar store. The kids quickly bought some very cheap useless toys. We found some candy for sale, but you do have to buy in bulk, and I  couldn't get any samples. We did not stay too long because the empty street was too strange for us on a Saturday afternoon in Osaka. Half the stores on the street were closed. Is it the economy, or the rain, or do they practice sabbath too?

Next we headed to the major tourist district of Namba and Doutonbori. When we got out of the subway at Namba, I headed to a huge department store called Takashimaya, since I was craving for some dessert. At the basement of the department stores, there is a dizzying amount of food stalls with all the fancy gourmet food and snacks you can think of. I don't know how big those basements are, but they are huge - I believe just the dessert section had 40 stands at least. I was hoping to try some free samples, but it was packed, so we tried to find a store that has seats. At least we decide to wait in line to eat at a dessert store called Gramercy New York, whose cheesecake was recommended in my guide book, which Curtis (he loves cheesecakes) has circled. The desserts were very tempting, and we had a hard time deciding which one to try.

My dessert combo. It was almond flower 豆腐花 in the shot glass. It was actually pretty taste; very almondy

After stuffing ourselves with dessert, we headed North towards Doutoubori through a series of shopping street. It was still raining, but the streets were packed with people out on a Saturday evening. We noticed most Japanese people carried clear see-through umbrellas, which was really pretty, so we bought one also. (We will return to China with 3 of those. Anyway...) The streets were lined with shops and arcades, and half the stores were regular chain stores like Claire's and Zara. All of a sudden, at one of the busiest street corners of Osaka, we ran into Randy's school friend Rory and his family.
  
 What a small world! Randy was so excited to run into him. Together we continued to wander down the shopping street (I think it is called Shinsaibashi), checking out the games in the arcades and cute shops. Shinsaibashi seemed never ending, and eventually we turned around to look at all the crazy store signs at Doutoubori. That is where the famous moving crab sign is. There are also some large signs of octopus, cows, dragons to advertise different restaurants.

The restaurant we ate at

I was still totally full from dessert, but Randy has developed some crazy appetite and was hungry again, so we just went into a regular sushi restaurant. The food was nothing special. When we left we realized why we thought the restaurant looked familiar - some guy's face is on the sign, the same face that was on the sign of the tonkatsu restaurant from the previous night. Maybe it is the same chain, but the tonkatsu was way tastier.



So that concluded our day in Osaka, and the next morning we will be heading to a small town famous for its ninja museum called Iga Ueno. I was hoping we would get to try the famous okonomiyaki or octopus balls, but with kids I guess it is better just to go with the flow.

One last thing, there is this one figure that you see all over Osaka calledくいだおれ太郎 (picture on the right) who is dressed up in some American flag gear. The story goes he was created as the mascot for some restaurant over 60 years ago. He is now sort of a symbol for Osaka. I found some basic information about him here.

LASER TAG

On the 15th of October 2012 I went to laser tag with my friends in my grade. We all went on a bus and played on ipods, ipads, etc. It took about an hour and a half to get there from our school. When we got there we were all excited! The team colors were white and green. I was on the white team. We could all pick from 2 kinds of guns: machine guns and pistols. I picked the machine gun, but a lot of people picked the pistols.

The arena was a giant outdoor maze on hills and in the woods. At first we played team death match, but that round ended very quickly. Because not every body knew how to play the game and we did not all stick together, that's why we lost so quickly. Next we all played team death match but with more lives, and we still lost. The next activity was capture the flag. We hid it really well but they still found our flag. I think maybe 1 of my teammates was a spy! Then my other friends joined us, but even with two extra people we still lost.

After every body finished playing laser tag, we all went down to the obstacle course. At the obstacle course we climbed rope, raced, etc. After that we all went back to BCIS. It was so fun!!!