Osaka: Pokemon, Passover and Cats

I've been back home in London for a few days now, utterly bewildered with jetlag and Japan already feels like it happened a long time ago. So I had better catch up!

We took the train to Osaka and then cautiously approached the Tourist Information desk to try and find somewhere a bit nicer than last time. I admit that I asked for a Western-style room because as much as I love the ryokan style I wanted comfort (plus a business hotel is cheaper).  So we ended up at the Mitsui Garden Hotel paying the same amount as for the students' house in Kyoto?! And I thought the room was actually pretty nice!

Mitsui Garden Hotel

It was a fairly standard business hotel with a big double bed, fridge, kettle etc. but also a big flat screen TV a trouser-press (which I couldn't figure out how to use) and a REALLY nice bathroom. Also there was a 7/11 on the ground floor so we ended up getting quite a few of our meals from there...

Chu-hi (a Kirin brand shochu mixer), beer, gyoza and something like satay from 7/11

Curry! gyoza and coke

Again we didn't really do 'sightseeing' but spent a lot of time just walking around which I kind of prefer, you get to see what a new city is like instead of rating its' museums which are often pretty similar all over the world. So we saw some stuff...

Lil' Car

I know maneki neko statues are everywhere but I liked this one with his fish (apparently a sea bream)

Though of course there were some things that we HAD to go and see! One of the first things we saw as we arrived was a sign for the 'Pokémon Centre'. To be honest it was just a large store (like the Disney Store on Oxford Street) but it was pretty cool to see the little figures of all the new Pokémon and they had this weird area with lots of assistants which was something to do with taking the card game a bit too seriously.

Apparently Pokémon is for children... we don't care!

We also went around the Doguyasuji shopping street and saw all the shops selling cooking supplies and utensils and shop front stuff....

Maneki neko paradise!

We almost forgot that it was Passover while we were away. I am not Jewish but Rowan was brought up Jewish and is used to spending Passover with his family so we did our best to make a Japanese equivalent to the Seder meal using whatever we could find at the 7/11

Pouring the wine (sake) for Passover

Passover meal

Wasabi in place of Maror/Chazeret, honey in place of Charoset, salad in place of Karpas, a paper bone to represent Z'roa and we did actually manage the Beitzah (hard-boiled egg). Oh and sake in place of sweet wine. For more information see here . If anyone who happens to read this is Jewish and takes the Passover meal very seriously, I do hope you realize that we have not meant to cause offense but for us it is closer to a family tradition and we had fun going on a treasure hunt in 7/11!

Sakura mochi! Best thing ever!

Our best meal in a random tiny shop. Only about £5

Quack

Subway

Subway

Kitten and puppy shop!

Bunnies and hamsters and mice.

Ghibli gift shop, totally unaffordable but lovely things.

On our first evening in Osaka we were approached by two boys asking if we wanted to model for them. Going against all common sense about going off with strangers in a foreign country I said we would and this is how we ended up getting free haircuts! I think that they wanted to make a lookbook of haircuts for their new salon but almost our entire communication was done through an iPhone which showed how amazing technology can be but also made me nervous that there might be a misunderstanding and I would end up shaved. I asked them to search 'Louise Brooks' and let them interpret as they liked which meant that nothing radical happened and we both just had our hair tidied up a bit.

We look like we're in some kind of institution.

And finally the cat cafe! We spent ages trying to find cat cafés online and walking about in the street but, not being able to read the addresses in Japanese, we were very unsuccessful. We had pretty much given up hope when we went to the building where one was supposed to be only to find that it had closed down! So when we went for our haircuts we were able to ask the hair stylists for help and they walked us all the way to the nearest one!

Favourite.

This one was beautiful, a Maine Coon but apparently small for his breed.

This was their room. I think the sink was there purely so the cats could lick the drips since there was a separate sink for the humans.

Nom nom nom

I think this was a Scottish Fold but he was giant and his ears were slightly unfolded.

favourite

And this was the view from our room at night, not quite Tokyo but very nice.

room with a view

Ok! I am going to try and finish Osaka part 2 NOW.....

xoxo