Ok so here’s a delayed blog – imagine me posting this exactly 1 week ago.

This weekend (ie. the weekend before last – stay with me kids!) was a great weekend indeed! On saturday I went to Osaka Aquarium, which rocked my sox, went on one of the worlds largest ferris wheels, and ate japanese-made-mexican food!  And to top it all off, on Sunday I ate a meat pie, and watched the Rugby grand final.  Not only that, this week i did something i said i’d never do – i joined a club.  I also confronted my worst fear.

HERE IT GOES!

So on Saturday morning I met up with my buddy Annie at Hirakata station, bound for Osaka.  We hopped aboard the express train on the Keihan line and eventually, after getting off at the wrong stop, arrived at Yodoyabashi Station in Osaka.  We jumped into the Subway and headed to Osakako station – just a 5 minute walk to the huge ferris wheel and the aquarium.

Uh, not exactly sure where we were… as in suburb/district/whatever wise.  But the place was nice.  We were right here:

Annie and I bee-lined it to the aquarium, as we were both super excited to check out all the crazy aquatic wildlife.  Annie’s parents are Biologists or somethin, and Annie’s just a geek who watches too many documentaries – so she was just TOO excited… weirdo… (PEACE annie! xD ). But just outside the aquarium was this big open space where people had set up stalls, a choir, a juggler AND real-life TETRIS!

The juggler was awesome, he was a Gaijin (foreigner), and according to the Japanese laughter he was quite funny.  Oh and spoke great Japanese, even Osaka-ben (Osaka dialect). …well i think it was good Japanese… I mean, i didn’t understand anything, it musta been good!

We finally headed into the aquarium, where we bought a joint ticket for the aquarium AND the giant ferris wheel down the road – we got a whole 100 yen off! WOO for savings!

Ok, so i can’t really what order everything came in, so i’ll just post a bunch of photo’s.  I mean there’s no use explaining to you what a penguin, a big fish, or a sting ray is.

Ok, however i WILL talk about 2 “fish”.

Fish #1: WHALE SHARKS! Note: Plural.  That’s right, they have 2 whale sharks! The worlds largest “fish”! They’re huuuge, however, these ones were a lot smaller than they could be – possibly the small-ish tanks they live in.  I heard some animals grow according to the size of their immediate environment, for example, Rats do.  Maybe whale sharks do too…  But yeah, they were cool.

Fish #2: Sunfish! aka “Mola” or, “Nerd of the Sea”.  … … Ok i made that last part up but OMG they are a dumb lookin fish.

However… I did find this pic on the net, apparently they grow McFreakin huge:

The aquarium was interestin in the way it was made.  It was one big spiral, and you take an escalator up to the top and slowly walk your way down and around all the “enclosures”.  It was cool.

After the aquarium, we checked out the Ferris Wheel.  Umm… it was cool, and big, but it was a ferris wheel so i’m not really sure what to say.  So please, view the amateur photography:

Oh next, the Mexican restaurant.  Ok so i had photo’s off Google Maps on where we had to go to reach this Mexican joint.

There are no street names here in Japanland, so it can be tricky navigating.  But we eventually found the place, tucked up on the 8th floor of a small building.  Aesthetically, it was awesome.  But we sat down and looked at the menu, a little expensive but it was all good.  I paid around 2000 yen for my food (about $25 Aussie), so kinda pricey.  But when the food came out it looked amazing.  The saddest part was that i didn’t take a photo as the food came out, i kinda just devoured everything and WOW it was good! Amazing! So I got this kinda combo thing where I got 2 enchilada’s, quesadilla’s, nachos, mashed potates (why?), salad, something else, and something else.  Simply amazing.  I recommend it. The place was El Pancho, and it’s in Shinsaibashi for any local readers who need a mexican fix.  Just Google Maps it, or refer to my dodgy map.

After mexican, Annie and I headed home.  Great day!

Sunday: FOOTY GRAND FINAL! YAAAY!  Melbourne Storm vs. Parramatta Eels.  Sorry, Ian/Alain – I was goin for Melbourne.  But for the occasion, me and 4 mates (Ash, Mitch, Charlie and Logan) went out to an Aussie bar, “Coolabah”, for some drinks and to watch the game – oh and to eat a meat pie.

We found the bar quite easily, in fact it was in the same area, kinda, as the mexican restaurant – so it made it a little easy to read my dodgy Google map.

Inside was cozy (ie. Small), but it was nice.  Had a hint of home there, or at least a hint of the good times me and my mates would have on a friday or saturday night.  I also got to have some Bundy Rum (Bundaberg Rum: Made in Bundaberg, in Australia).  Oh it brought back good memories – but it was expensive.  But for the occasion, i didn’t mind forkin out some money.  Unfortunately, the game was being streamed from a dodgy internet connection and so it had to buffer every 5 seconds, which sucked ass to be honest. But we got to see the gist of it all.  At half time, I ordered a meat pie which we all dug into – it was AMAZING.  Then everyone sorta got something off the menu and we shared it, but to be honest, the only good thing they had was the meat pie – which was also expensive: 1100 yen (nearly $15 Aussie).

The game was great, apart from the connection of course.  Melbourne took an early lead, then expanded the lead and just held on to it the whole game.  In the last 10 minutes Parramatta came back and needed 1 more try (“touchdown” for any american readers) and conversion to tie the game.  That was until Melbourne kicked a field goal which ultimately ended the game, Parramatta would need 2 tries to win in about 5 minutes – not happening.  Melbourne went on to win the Grand Final 23-16.  WOO!

After the game, i went and tried Subway (food subway, not the train subway – much confusion over this on the day lol) – uh, disappointing really.  That’s all on Subway.

So… my worst fear. Ok so i’ve mentioned this in a previous post, I SUCK AT SPEAKING JAPANESE!  It’s not that I don’t know enough, i freak out when i need to speak it and i forget EVERYTHING i’ve learned. It’s terrible.  Ok so, what happened? Well yesterday I had my spoken Japanese class, as i do everyday.  except.. it was different this time… I walked in and there were heaps of desks.  I was the first there and I noticed my teacher moving these chairs around.  So i offered to help and she said to “pair them up”.  So i did…  I sat in one, and about 2 minutes later a flood of Japanese people started entering the classroom.

MY SPIDER SENSE IS TINGLING!

Yep, i knew what this was.  I was gonna be stuck with a Japanese person, and we would have to just talk to each other.  Sure enough I was right. Oh god… However, through the awful experience of talking to 2 Japanese girls for 25 minutes each, I found that my Japanese was better than I thought – terrible, but better.

My English friend, Jamie, has been telling me about this “Kenpo” club he attended last week.  It sounded good, as I used to do Tae Kwon Do and Karate amongst other things for quite a few years.  So on Monday I checked it out, I just watched by Jamie trained.  It looked awesome.

Oh, and to be correct, this style is called “Shorinji Kempo” (with an “m”, and not an “n” anymore, for some whack reason) – which is a bit different to just “Kenpo”… apparently.  Now, i don’t know if this is a well known Martial Art, as I told one of the Japanese girl’s i talked to in class about it and she didn’t know what it was – she knew “Kendo” (swords focussed martial arts), but not “Kenpo”. Wikipedia describes it as:

“[Shorinji Kempo] could be described as a combination of karate, judo, and aikijujutsu built on a Kung Fu framework, except that this art generally has no killing moves because of its respect for life.”

YEAH! RESPECT! FOR LIFE!

So yeah, yesterday I went and trained, as well as today.  It was awesome.  Also the background in Martial arts are really helping with self defense combinations, balance and basic techniques.  Buuut, i’m outta shape so it’s really killin me! But i’ll get there! I’ve got a whole 8 months to get there!

Well, folks, i hope you enjoyed my postage – coz i sure did.

Ciao for Now!