Adventures in Osaka

Andy and I had some crazy times in Osaka during Golden Week. It was interesting to suddenly turn into a tourist after living here since late January. But that did mean that I got to take Andy to my favorite spots, and discover some new ones.

On our most action-packed day, we went to check out the Osamu Tezuka Museum in Takarazuka (which I made a post about over here). Tezuka is the creator of Astro Boy, etc, aka one of the most influential manga-ka ever. The museum was really cute, and inspiring. It reminded me how when I was in 1st and 2nd grade, the thing I wanted the most in this world was to be a cartoonist.


That's Astro Boy's hand and footprints, btw. He's a small dude.

From Takarazuka, we went to Namba, which has the iconic neon sign Glico man view of Osaka.



We went to karaoke on a whim and had a grand ole time. Big Echo has a fabulous 飲み放題.

The next day, we had a picnic in 大阪城公園 Osaka Castle Park featuring food we bought at the supermarket and bakery by my station. Here I am with cheese.






Guess why I'm smiling.



One more for the road:

嵐山

Okay, catching up on blogging time.

When Andy and I got back from Kobe in the middle of Golden Week, we headed up to Kyoto to hang out with Jess (who has since returned back to the glorious motherland of the United States). She took us to 嵐山 Arashiyama, which means STORM MOUNTAIN which is totally badass, and we took lots of pretty pictures because everything was so green.








Boats!



The temple to see at Arashiyama is 天竜寺 Tenryuuji or HEAVEN DRAGON TEMPLE. Apparently this part of Kyoto just has badass names. Jess had been here a bunch of times already but actually was not sick of it. I appreciated her willingness to go there again with us.


















This picture came out blurry, but this was 4-flavored soft serve for the price of 1! How could I resist such a bargain. From top to bottom: sakura (which actually tasted like Cinnamon Toast Crunch for reasons beyond all of us), hojicha (roasted green tea), green tea, and vanilla.

And for a touch of modernity:

スイーツみたいな毎日

So Andy and I did a lot of cool things over Golden Week, as per usual. We started out in Kobe　and did the hip things, like hang out at Harborland hitting up some Golden Week sales, since Andy had to buy some new shoes because he lost one of his. Yeah, just one.





For some reason, Harborland has a ridiculous amount of gelato and boba.



One of me and Andy's favorite things to do has become going to bakeries. These are turtle melon pan I guess? Really fucking cute.

I've got a lot more pictures and stories, so stay tuned. I'm doing a pretty good job convincing myself there isn't that much more school left and I can just chill out. And my birthday is in one week when I will turn 21! And more adventures are just around the corner.

またな

Starting tomorrow, I am on vacation, so don't look for me.

jk I'm never that far away from the Internet.

Expect pictures.

♥ s