2011 - NZ To SF - Day 105

Day 105: (26 August 2011):
- Arrange to meet Ben at office for lunch.
- Use morning to sleep in & fix computer (try) & find housing in SF & look for Couchsurfers / Fuji information.
- Meet Ben @ office. Tried to check out a bank for exchange, but didn’t have time. Buy Y850 day pass. Ask station attendant help. Turns out “today only” Y650. Great deal, as Y280 to Ben’s office.
- Try ramen place again, but long line again.
- Okonomiyaki place. Took long time to serve. Pork belly kimchi. Should have gotten gyoza for Y100 extra.
- A bit awkward w/ Japanese vs. English, but OK.
- “That’s a very Markli answer.” Female ask, Ben explain. “So can you say Benli?” Best quote of the trip.
- Had a bit of female’s, as she did not finish. Took 5 extra min to eat, very hot. Feel bad they 15 min late back to work.
- Have the tasty salty litchi drink Ben had night before.
- Take subway to Osaka Port for aquarium. Stop Just before big bridge on an outside portion of rail. Nice view of dense suburbs whizzing by.
- Very guided tour path. According to Ben, all museums & such in Japan all have set up tour paths. Not as free form as the West. Nice walk around. Large rainbow ferris wheel. Other attractions & hotel. Walk around water area. Pretty expensive admission.
- Useful pamphlet. Feeding times. Offer me Chinese pamphlet, I take English.
- Entrance on line up, covered queing area with mist. Busy concourse.
- Smelly forest area on top.
- Giant fish in some exhibits.
- Feeders have sea lions do tricks, feed penguin, the animals climbing all over.
- Children zone in front of windows.
- Lower few floors spiral down, visiting same exhibits at different depths. A bit repetitive.
- Giant central aquarium cool. Huge ray doing flips. Hammerheads. Divers. Whale shark with escorts following (fish). But just swim in circles, & fin is injured. Not as big as expected.
- The cute dorsal finless dolphin. “Hi everybody.” Cartoon character quite cute & amusing, doing diff things in exhibits.
- Turtles & king crabs. Tank filled with small fish.
- Escalator with warning of can’t return afterwards.
- Jellyfish exhibit. The angel-like things very popular. Much smaller than I expected.
- On way out: special “Kawaii” exhibit. See ads in subway.
- Tiny fish. Strange cute blobs. “Kawaii!” from girls few times per minute.
- one small eel-like burrowing fish look in direction I suddenly turn to look in.
- Small jellies also in exhibit.
- Small sea urchin with giant eye-like bulbus thing. Ben says no wonder they make the bosses in videogames in Japan. Turns out bulbous thing is an anus.
- Also cool touch tank where you can touch different sharks & rays after washing hands. Signs indicating where is OK to touch, guy with megaphone constantly saying instructions.
- The ray that flared up & turned away right before get to my hand, I go “ehh?” & a female cracks up beside me.
- Walk around busy plaza a bit. One or two street shows attracting attention.
- Some shopping centres. Had matcha float after some confusion ordering: pointing to pictures, signs, etc.
- Felt comfortable in a modern shopping centre for first time in so long. Kind of like a suburban mall. Surprisingly busy, families.
- Didn’t have that much time left, but decided to go for a quick walk around Tsuruhashi.
- Lots of Korean restaurants as Ben stated, make me hungry. Cool alleyways with lights under train tracks, lots of small stores. Line of restaurants & blds under tracks. Small area, outside is just like typical busy Japan neighbourhood.
- Subway back & meet Ben on time.
- Ben not ready yet. Say hi through window then come down. Stay a bit extra due to late return from lunch.
- Walk around Umeda a bit. Busy/cool place beside / under train tracks.
- Back to meet Ben (of course, constant drinks from vending machines).
- Walk to Umeda. Discuss the 3 colour ramen ranking system. Blue, green, gold. Ramen maps.
- Eat at (3-6-3?), a “green” ranked place. Agreed to rank. Pretty solid ramen, cool room, steamy kitchen, acrylic steam barrier.
- Ben had tsukimen, said it was pretty solid. Of course, more instruction sheets on how to eat tsukimen.
- Decide drink in Namba (or Shinsaibashi?). Cool flourescent tube “chandaliers” in station.
- Find a cheap izakaya. Try chu-hi. Skate wing bones as snack.
- Mini toy vending machines. Get race car card.
- Play games with coins.
- Hinted us to leave (ask us any more orders) as we just drink slowly, not much food. Take their Y280(?) drink deal.
- Walk back. Nice, but far-ish walk. Remind me of walking drunk in Tokyo to our hotel last time.
- Decide go to Kobe tomorrow.
- A CSer going to climb Fuji with me. Can stay at his place for a night. Turns out is close to Tokyo, had impression it was half way.