Osaka During the Day

After getting off from the Shenkensen, I made my way to my hotel using the subway (which is apparently different from the JR… but it also takes suica). 

Going to my hotel required me to go through Dontobori (during the day, which looks a lot different from night). 

  
Unfortunately, since I arrived at 1:30pm, they couldn’t give me a room without charging me extra (official check in time is at 3pm). So I just dropped my bags off, and headed for Osaka Castle.

Along the way to Osaka Castle, I stopped the Crystal building, which is a really tall building (maybe the tallest in Osaka?).

  
The Castle itself was awesome to look at, and the view from the top was pretty sick.

   
   

After Osaka Castle I headed for the oldest Buddha temple, the Shitennoji Shrine. 

  
On my way to Sumiyoshi-Taisha shrine, I stopped by to get this fancy donut.

  
   
   
On my way back to the hotel, i of course went through Dontobori. I decided to get some delicious Takoyaki, since everyone was selling it. 

  

Earthquake, Shinkansen Train

I woke up this morning at 6am… but not from an alarm, but from an earthquake! Fukushima apparently had a 7.3 magnitude quake (where there is now a tsunami warning). The experience was very interesting, since everything in my room was swaying (and lying down on my bed, it seemed like it was rocking back and forth). After, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I checked out of my hotel at 8:00AM. Here are some pics of my hotel.

   
    
 
Before going to Tokyo train station to take the Shinkansen, I met up with Ben for breakfast. We had breakfast at a place called Jonathan’s Cafe.

  
After, I took the JR to Tokyo Station. Before getting on board, I treated myself to some food:

   
    
    
   

SFO -> HND

Arrived at Tokyo yesterday at 2:35 PM. Clearing customs was super fast and easy. Figuring out the train to Sugamo was also not bad, but had a bit of difficult at first since Google maps didn’t recognize my hotels address (apparently because it’s super new). But after loading my Suica card with 1000 yen (which had a previous balance of 500 yen), I was ready to go!

    
I met up with Ben at Sugamo station, and we headed to my hotel. We were planning to go to the on-sen at my hotel,  but they didn’t open till 5pm, so we check out his place.

   

   

After chilling for a bit, we went back to my hotel, and check out the on-sen. For the most part, it was similar to the Korean Spa we tried in New York, but slightly better.

  

After the on-sen we made our way to Shinjuku for dinner (a really good Izakaya Place) and bar hopping.

  
   
    
    
   

We then walked around Shinjuku for a bit. One of the two following pictures brought back some bad memories from my last Tokyo trip:

   
 
Then we went to Tokyo Tower for some pics (fortunately the skies cleared and it stopped raining):

   
 

Day 1 – First Night Out

After eating dinner, we made our way to Eric’s camp at around 8:45pm.

When we got to his camp, we (Sam, Eric, and I), decided to do p (each had 100). Eric mentioned though that he needed to get back to his camp before 1am, since he was going to do m with his camp mates. We assured him this was possible.

Shortly after, we got on our bikes and headed to Richard’s camp, of course taking the 3 – 9 Esplanade pass through. 

When we got to Richard’s camp, he was not there. We chilled for a bit at his camp, but then we decided to take a walk and leave our bikes.

We walked towards the center of BRC. Along the way there were these tangos that appeared to be moving.

When we got to the center, looking out and around… the art was very surreal and beautiful. I also felt like I was in a holodeck, or like at the center of the universe. Looking up seemed like I was in space. 

We eventually made our way to the man in the center. Approaching it, and even look at the gears… they were all moving. Even the sand. Looking at things, you sorta know how they work.

After the man, we eventually made our way to some of the sound stages. One of them was called the Mayan Warriors. They’re lights and sounds we’re amazing. We then went to Opulent temple, where we stayed for quite a while. When we were trying to leave, Eric kept just turning around and heading back to it… it was like he was completely mesmerized lol.

After Opulent temple, we passed by this stage called the Bare Bonze stage, where the set up was just speakers, and a skeleton of a stage. I thought it was very creative.

The final stage we stayed at (mainly since it had a fire pit) was Kahzba. One of the djs, Hoj, played a really good set.

We also chilled at some couches that Kahzba had, although Eric was pretty cold (so we then stayed around the fire area).

We left Kahzba around 6am to get our bikes. On our way back, walking through the center, the walk in itself was also a journey. The clouds and the sky simply looked amazing, along with the mountains (it almost seemed like we could walk and reach the mountains). We saw people parachuting down. It’s unclear the number of people.

<insert pics from the morning, like the picture frame one)

After getting our bikes, we went to bed at 7am.

Lol. The takeaway is that Eric did not make it back by 1am… but we did have every intention of brining him back.