Osaka Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

Since Ayaka is USJ (Universal Studio Japan) lover we all deicded to go there and have fun :)I'm the only one who's not living in Osaka so I had to get up early and take a train. I could have got on Shinkansen but I'm saving some money for my next travel so that I took Kintetsu as usual. I set my alarm at 6:30am and was going to take 8:30am train to Osaka. I went to bed before 1am but I wasn't worry about getting up early cuz i set up my alarm. I woke up by my dad's voice. He was saying someth…

Kind of early in the trip for this, but I am experiencing a little "blog burnout." Today I vow not to ramble. This will be a short one. Really. In fact, I am even going to do bullet points. MORNING: up at 6:45 and parked myself at the computer. Blog, blog, blog.  It's like a job! :^) Steve focused on his obsession: tryng to download free TV from the US.  There is some block on doing this, so he is VPN-ing this and hacking that, but to no avail. MID MORNING BREAK: Walked through Osak…

On March 3rd, in Japan it is Hinamatsuri, otherwise known as dolls festival or girls day. The dolls though are not dolls that girls play with but are dolls that are displayed on a red cloth in the families homes. The dolls are displayed over 7 tiers, with the emperor and the empress on the top tier. The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period from 794. Formerly people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. They would then set the hina dolls on a boat …

My lessons finished, I virtually ran out the door, stuff paper work who needs it. ( I'll better do that first thing Monday morning). I hopped on the train and headed into Osaka for a mini meet up that coincided with Jenns birthday. Jen had come from New York  to Japan for her birthday. There were only 6 of us who attended but we all had a great time. The meeting place was HEP5. a shopping mall that has a ferris wheel on its roof.Thinking that I was late, only 5 minutes past seven I…

Thousands of people crowded around in anticipation of the danjiri (float) rolling up the street, as the danjiri built up speed you could see the strains on the faces of the people pulling the 3000 kilogram floats . The people all in teams chanting in Japanese the equivalent  of heave ho, heave ho. The towns local carpenter stood on top of the floats performing the airplane dance made famous by this festival, first the carpenter  moving to his left, then to his right to the rythmic b…

I was looking forward to that day from when Gloria & Chris bring plan for this meetup.I went to the meetup with my sister Hisami and my daughter Ayano.We decided go to wearing the Yukata there. Yukata is sort of casual summer Kimono. We arrived first in estaurant "yumehachi". Then we waited at front of elevator them. Then Agi. Sure, we noticed each other soon and we did hug! Agi speak Japanese very well.Then Eriko & her friend came. time passes but there is not other TBs still.Me &a…

I've been in Japan for the past 5 weeks or so and I've been having a great time.  My journals have all been kept in a wordpress blog: seelemonsonline.wordpress.comI didn't originally write here because it was too difficult to post pictures, but I'm very glad that they got that fixed with the new java applet.  I'll probably update this blog with my entries from my blog.  I've got a lot of good reviews sprinkled around.  Watch out, Photographer's award.Let me know if you wan…

Maybe I should start the whole story from the end... Right now it`s about 3am and I`m staying at an internet cafe for next 3 hours. Yes, I missed the last subway `cause I was having too much fun with all the TravBuddies :D Arrived to Osaka late in the afternoon, checked in my hotel and got ready for the BIG NIGHT!Of course I had to get lost in the Umeda station, why does it have to be so freakin` huge? Aaaah, too many shops and stuff! When I finally found the gate I was suppose to go out I a…

Last day in Osaka... and Japan. Got to wander around the city, only to get myself lost. Think about it... very little Japanese vocabulary mixed with some millions of Japanese people bumping into you everywhere you go... with very little space? I got lost for about 2 hours, wandering in circles... passing through vacant subway tunnels and not a person in sight. Needed to find an exit somehow, but whenever I got to the surface... it didn't look familiar at all. When I got to the informations bo…

When you think of things that symbolize Japan you naturally think of Mount Fuji rising into a mist of clouds with the shinkansen(bullet train) passing it at speeds of over 200 km per hour. Those picture perfect  postcards that  you often see of Mount Fuji is a photographers delight, the photographer may have waited numerous days and nights to capture that one everlasting shot. The ancient temples and shrines scattered throughout the country is another great sight of Japan, buddhist…

This is it!! Its my first real morning in Japan. Although my plane has arrived yesterday at 11am, it doesnt count as mornig here because I was still at my european time inside of me :) My aeroplane to Japan was painted with Mummins cartoon characters!!!! It was sooo cute! and everybody started making pictures before they got on board (including me of course) When I landed, my friend Agata (more people here know her as Agi-god knows why ;P) picked me up from the airport and delivered to the h…

amazing

Here are some pictures of my trip to Japan from 15 August - 21 August 2007.

4th times visiting Japan.. Got so relaxing and culture experience this time.. I was almost dying with extremely busy work by holding a festival in the end of 2007. Fortunately, I did feel refresh and get better after staying Japan for 2 week, doing nothing, eating assorted tasteful food and traveling most of facinating cities not only in Kansi area, namely, Osaka, Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Kobe and Hemiji, but also Mie, Toba and Ise.. Koyashan is no doubt still my favourit!!

Jenny and I were returning from a trip to Hawaii (including our Safari Helicopter ride out of Hilo over the active volcano) but when we landed in Osaka to change planes to get to Okinawa, we were told there was yet another typhoon hitting Okinawa so we had to spend the night in Osaka.  That very night we felt a few tremblers, but since we were standing over the train station we ignored them.  Well, after dinner we went back up to the 11th floor of our $100 USD per night "room" (whic…