From our place, we took the subway
up to the Osaka Castle neighborhood. After
reading a few reviews online, we opted to tour the Osaka Castle park area for
free and skip paying the fee to tour the castle itself. You can walk
immediately up to and around the entire castle complex, and it was fantastic. I
am not sure how I would have felt about the stuff on the inside, but I was
perfectly content not spending any money on this and felt fulfilled by the
experience
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
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| Osaka Castle |
And of course there would be a Belgian Beer Festival in the city while we were there, and OF COURSE, we would go to it while we were there! We were surprised how small the festival was and how few people were there, but it met our needs and was very efficient.
Adam and I shared an entry glass and a few
selections, before just opting to buy the bottles from the shop straight out
(for significantly cheaper) and heading back to the apartment.
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| Happy man and his beer |
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| Now...to use the toilet... |
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| Truth in advertising...hopefully! |
It
was a nice and cloudy day all day, with a slight
drizzle at the beer festival, where we were enjoying the few drops of moisture
hitting our skin. It was amusing to watch all of the locals, with their
umbrellas up or huddling cramped under the tents, stare at us in amazement as
we walked around unaffected by the condensation. After living in the desert for so long, we learn to LOVE and thoroughly enjoy anything that isn't fine sand or humidity.
After relaxing for a bit, we ventured back out for the
evening to walk through a popular evening area full of restaurants, “gambling”
halls, and girl bars. The interesting thing about the girl bars, is that there
is an entry fee for males to enter, and they sit and buy drinks for both himself
and a girl that works for the bar just to sit and talk. Just talk. Nothing else. Truly, nothing else. Really interesting.
