Greetings!! After yesterday's 'constipation crisis', today you must watch out for vegetable tourettes whilst reading my blog post. I may at any moment spontaneously shout out the random name of a vegetable or fruit. I'm rather missing my fruit and veg, you see, and yesterday's "very berry smoothie" was a BIG disappointment.
Before I begin, Nii-san means "older brother" (not to be confused with a certain Japanese car manufacturer), and the reason I've included that as part of today's headline is that EVERYONE seems to think that I'm Mark's older brother. Having received a couple of comments about it in the last few days, Mark has taken it upon himself to constantly remind me about it! I would, therefore, like to go on record as saying that I am the Otouto (younger brother) and not the Niisan, Sunny!
Today, we left Kyoto and headed for Osaka. But not before we visited a few department stores in Kyoto and retrieved the car from the vertical car park, which had conveniently turned the car around for us (photograph 1). I must admit that a cruel part of me was hoping that the vertical car park might have acted with the randomness of a vending machine; opening the door to reveal the car sitting on its roof.
We arrived at Osaka in time for lunch, and decided to try
Okonomiyaki - a dish containing cabbage, fish, sticky potato, flour and meat. It was all cooked on a hot plate on the table, right infront of us. I took photographs at various stages of the cooking process. Photograph 2 shows a moment part way through, when fish flakes were added to the top. They moved around like a load of moths trying desperately to escape the heat. Photographs 3 to 5 are of the other stages of the cooking process. Notice how photograph 4 bears an uncanny resemblance to a pair of… "
MELONS" (oops!)
Whilst the food is cooked, the restaurant provide you with a survey to fill in (how handy!). So, next time you are on Family Fortunes and get asked the question "We surveyed 100 people and asked them to name a food that looks like a pair of breasts", you will know to answer "Okonomiyaki". You'll probably win a prize for your trouble, like a second hand hamster wheel. If the rest of your family then answer "water melons", "cupcakes" and "fried eggs", then you're sure to win the star prize.
We had planned to eat lunch and then visit the cinema to see a film. However, after finishing lunch early we found ourselves with some time to kill, allowing us a small amount of time to act like silly children. We started in a sports store. But not any old sports store, oh no. It made JJB look like s.h.i.t, with 26 aisles filled with equipment from baseball to tiddlywinks (ok, not quite. Besides, tiddlywinks isn't a sport… yet). Photograph 6 was taken from one end of the store looking towards the other end. Photograph 7 shows some cute kiddies ski sets. Photograph 8 is of Mark trying on a coat… which made him look like a… "MANGE TOUT" (damn it!)
After finding the exit of the sports store, we bought some cake and headed for the cinema to see "Drag Me To Hell"; a horror thriller based upon a girl being cursed and finding out that her fortune comes true, with lots of unfortunate incidents happening along the way. So, a perfect choice of film to see following my
incident with the fortune telling machine. Ah well, at least while we were watching the film I made a new and interesting discovery to shock the world of desserts… grapefruit sorbet!
Once the film had finished, we left for our hotel and were greeted with a nice surprise. One of Mark's friends works as a receptionist at the hotel and was nice enough to book us into a £200 a night traditional Japanese room, at a total cost of £7 each. Saboy! (wow!) Photograph 9 shows the room we are sleeping in this evening (on futons on the floor). The view out of the room is amazing - as demonstrated in photographs 10 and 11.
After dumping our luggage in the room, we went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was really delicious - various curries plus rice and naan bread (or 'nun bread' as the menu pronounced it). Photograph 12 shows our meal... with the nuns sitting in the middle of the table.
The final two photographs of the day are of our walk back along to the hotel. Photograph 13 is of a famous part of Osaka called
Dotonbori. Photograph 14 is of a garage that we walked past, containing many millions of pounds of cars (Lamborghinis, etc). These are apparently owned by some of the hosts of the local cabaret clubs. They're obviously rather rich... "
PRUNUS DOMESTICA (plums)".
Right, enough of this madness. Tomorrow we leave Osaka and head South West to Himeji. I'm not quite sure what the Internet access is going to be, as we will be travelling into some remote areas. So, the next blog may not be for a day or two.
TTFN