King's Family Slain by Deadly Pufferfish

Change of writer now, it's Lockey, hi. Konichiwa, as we say in Japan. We haven't learned much Japanese, but we say hello and thank you, but it is a bit of a mouthful. Initially we thought that Domo arigato was thank you very much and my lonely planet guide suggested that domo was appropriate in most instances, but it seemed like most Japanese people say something a lot longer than that and we couldn't really figure it out. When I asked one of the Hotel receptionists she suggested just saying arigato, however, while we were at our cooking lesson with Chizuko she told us that we should be saying arigato goziemus. Which is usually what people were saying to us, usually you should do a little bow to, but my bows usually just look like a head bob.

 Anyway. - oh one other thought, for some reason when we showed up in Japan and started saying arigato all I could think of is Matt (Smith) singing "domo aragato Mr. Roboto" so we sang that a lot as we walked around everywhere, thanks Matt.

 On our final day in Osaka we had initially planned to go out into the mountains and check out some waterfalls, however we found out that this adventure would require us to take two trains and a bus and cost about 6000 yen total which is like 100 bucks. It would also take a couple of hours there and a couple of hours back. We are also planning on going to play in the mountains in Nikko and Karuizawa, so we decided to forego our initial plan and fly by the seat of our pants.

The other big tourist attraction in Osaka is the Osaka Jo Castle, which has been built and destroyed a number of times, but it is surrounded by a beautiful park and garden area which was nice to walk through.



It had quite the fortifications, there was a moat, then a Huge wall, and if that wasn't enough there was another moat, then another huge wall and then the castle was lifted up on another huge wall... someone was a little insecure sitting in their big ol' castle.

 So we walked up through all of the defenses and there was a pony-tailed Japanese man sitting on a bench singing and playing the guitar. He wasn't begging or anything, but he has his music stand out and he looked like he was just spending the day sitting out in the park playing his guitar and singing his songs. I really liked it. It was kind of interesting because he was playing what looked like a spanish guitar and the music itself didn't sound that asian, but his singing made it almost sound like he should be playing another instrument. But it was nice and we listened for quite a while.

 After a quick bathroom break, where Cami used the Handicap room, because she prefers to be handicapped than use the asian toilets, and I accidentally walked into the girls bathroom, we got ourselves into the Castle.

 The Osaka-Jo Castle is one of the largest structures in Osaka and once we got onto the top floor we had an awesome view of the city and the mountains. There are gold inlays and nice detail work all along the outside and the inside of the castle.



Another sidenote, I got to try out the iphone 4s with Siri and it seems pretty cool, you should try it if you get a chance. Make sure to ask her what her favorite colour is and ask her what she thinks about android phones. - SIDENOTE OVER

 Moving on through the castle we saw a big silk screen that described the Summer War that the Lord of the castle participated in. I should remember his name, but I don't (but Cami thinks it's Hideyoshi). There were cool holograms and holographic descriptions about his life.



 Legend has it that when he was born there was a star that was as bright as the sun in the sky. It's interesting that this sign is so common in many different cultures, yet I've never seen a star even close to as bright as the moon, let alone the sun. thoughts? So he grew up in poverty, and may have even been a bandit, then he was hired by a warlord and quickly grew in prestige and power. He had some good ideas like turning the construction of some military building into a competition to get it done quicker and damming a river to flood and destroy a castle. He had some low points in life too though, as he decided it was a good idea to murder his first family under the guise of rebellion so that he could start a new family, pretty weak i'd say. Probably shouldn't murder your family. Then there was a spot at the end to get dressed up in Samurai garb, and we got all dressed up and took pictures, oh wait no, that's not what happened because I'm cheap...

But he did get a cool stamp!

 After our visit to Osaka-Jo we were off to find something to eat, as it was 2:00 and hadn't eaten since 9:00, but to hold us over we got a twist cone and Cami got a vitamin water, can you tell that I like ice cream? - PS. What the heck is up with there not being twist cones anywhere anymore??? Who doesn't like twist cones??? They are way better than just vanilla or just chocolate, you get both in one delicious frozen dessert... I think I'm going to stage a protest outside of McDonalds demanding that they bring back the twist cone





 - Once I had my delicious two flavored hand held dessert we decided that it would be a good idea to walk in the opposite direction from where we had come in order to find some food before we hopped on the train. However, the map that we had was not to scale and before we knew it we were closer to our hotel than we were to the train that we took to get to the Castle. It's kind of funny that it took two trains and six stops to get us to a place that it only took us probably an hour and a half to walk to. Like I said we walk a lot.

We had decided on Sushi and were on the look out for a good Sushi restaurant, but I was being a bit indecisive. So indecisive in fact that it was getting close to 5:00. Hunger, plus indecisiveness, plus me being cheap and not wanting to spend too much on sushi, equals a little bit if irritableness. So I FINALLY decided on this one place because it was a good price and they served the dreaded... wait for it... PUFFERFISH!!!! Da Da DAAAAAAAA.... If not prepared correctly this sushi could kill, that's right KILL you.... We watched this tv show where the guy ate some while in Japan and he made it all dramatic, but really I figure that if they are allowed to serve it, than it isn't that big of a deal and i didn't have to sign a waiver or anything, so they at least haven't been sued yet. AND guess what? It was delicious. Like probably my second favorite bit of sashimi.

 Also, man up and start eating sashimi, much better than sushi or nigiri. My first favorite sashimi is Yellow-fin YUMMMY!!!



So we had a plate of tiger-puffer and an assorted sashimi set that came with three little delicacies, a bit of tempura, some mediocre miso and some rice. Delicious.

And this is what we left in our wake!

 We wandered around a bit, then grabbed these things called Hot Hots (That was our second set of Hot Hots that day... Cami loves them) for dessert and called it an early night, because we had to wake up at 6:00 to catch our train for Nikko, which is where I'm writing from now. So sayonara!

PS...
Japanese people LOVE to match.  There were twinners EVERYWHERE!  boys, girls, boys and girls, doesn't matter the combo, they call each other the night before to match.



And also a random shout out to Krista Jayne and Jun, we saw these two signs right across the street from each other.  Jun was a popular business in Japan, clothes and such and I think the Janus one is self-explanatory, but they did spell Jaynus wrong! Can't say we don't think of you though!