9:58 - After a second beautiful breakfast I am taking it easy. This morning will serve as a time of rest because later on I will be moving about and I would like to be as awake as possible. I'll return to Fushimi Inari Taisha for some day time photos and then come back to the Umeda area to see Iron Man 3. Luckily for me I made a very apropos discovery that will take a bit of my burden off of me. In Osaka Station there are tons of storage lockers that range from $3-6 depending on their size. The fee lasts for the whole day, though I'm sure you can only open it the one time to store your possessions and then to remove them. But it works for me! Now I don't have to drag my luggage around like a fool. But as of right now I'm catching up on some more shows. Later! 13:01 - Boy oh boy are some travelers ruthless vultures! I got to Osaka Station at about 12 planning to dump my baggage in a locker and go quick, fast, and in a hurry. I was sorely mistaken. Every single one of those lockers were taken, not a key in sight. Like many of the poor people I had to vie with in order to get a locker, I creeped my hardest so as to wait for someone to return to a locker of the appropriate size for me. At one point I saw a woman coming towards the locker banks, key in hand, and thought "Yes! Finally victory is mine!" But before I could follow her to her locker an old woman was already in the area near the lady's locker and asked her for it. Later, a young man and his female companion approached with a key and opened the perfect sized locker that I needed. they took their time removing their things and by then other people were filing in and out of the aisle staring at them. A little boy came around the corner, saw the opportunity for a place and called to his mom but I stood as close to the couple as I could without totally invading their space to show him that it was mine. They finally cleared out and just as I grabbed the handle a little old lady had walked up but went away disappointed. As I was taking my laptop out of my backpack I could feel eyes on me and saw a bunch of people, including the little boy, waiting to see if I was coming or going. I finished putting away my things, careful to conceal my laptop with my jacket and went to the coin machine for change.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
So for basically an hour of running around this entire station (and running into my friend Ren by accident - I freaked out her friends by hovering my head near her shoulder until she noticed me), I had finally found a locker. And to think I had almost given up and either left with all my things or waited in an impossibly long line to use a designated baggage storage area. From there I recharged my Suica and got on the special rapid train to Kyoto. So much for a restful day right?
15:06 - Having witnessed what it is like to be at Fushimi Inari Shrine both at night and in the daytime I have come to the conclusion that while the night is peaceful and humbling yet creepy, the day is filled with so many different kinds of people, families and couples. It is bright and seems to offer one hope for times to come and I certainly felt very good after having walked farther on in it. While doing this walking I creeped some more on couples and girls dressed up in kimono today (this weekend was a special festival one) - for the couples here I think that's the equivalent of an American couple wearing the same colors or even one of the same article of clothing (like a shirt) only much more classy and pretty.
I didn't realize how much of a hike it would be so I stopped about halfway and turned around not knowing that the point I'd reached was only a few minutes away from the main shrine. I figured that out on my way down and I saw a sign telling the distances between points so by then it was too late. But I got my charms (my favorite is the happiness one on the left) and key chains and happily left the shrine area.
It was a very beautiful and fulfilling experience to make it to this place and I hope someday to hike the whole thing with someone very special :]. For now I will enjoy the rest of this day just soaking in the rest of the Osaka atmosphere before I return to school life. Movies and then Umeda Sky Tree it is!
19:10 - Okay first let me just say WOW! Iron Man 3 was super freaking cool! Right, so now that that's done, I am going to break down my commentary for this part of the evening into two parts: the theater, and the movie (spoiler alert - I may discuss the film in some detail [relatively speaking] so skip that part if you think it will ruin the movie for you. You have been warned!). Alright, so the theater is called Toho Theater but this movie was played in the annex. When you buy your ticket (1,500 for students and 1,800 for adults - EXPENSIVE!!!), you must then decide where in the theater you would like to sit. Not like in America where you just stroll into the place and pick any old seat, no, they pull out a schematic layout of the theater and you pick a seat which they print off on your ticket. Then you get to take your seat which is rather comfortable, accompanied by the usual cup holder but with an extension to hold popcorn and a hook on the back of the chair before you to hold your bags. Pretty nice right?
As for the movie, I have to say that we get to see more of the ingenuity that Tony displayed in the first movie. Much like the time of his capture, he is rendered "useless" without his suits and even with little to no capital or resources for appropriate building materials he still manages to get himself out of a jam. This goes to show that he is more than his money. When left to his own intellectual devices he can sure come up with some really helpful stuff (plus that kid that helped him happened to be a little precocious kid as well which was a bonus). It's a shame that being smart or more intelligent than the average person has a history of being looked down upon. Well you know what I say to that crap - Forget what ya heard, nerds run this! I'm only half of a nerd - whole nerd according to some people I know - but I fully stand by that truth because we do run things around here. I mean hello, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerburg, Eistein anyone? Aside from all the amazing action sequences and smatterings of Tony Stark showing his true narcissistic colors only to marginally grow as a person while trying to keep Pepper safe, the only thing I have an issue with was the subtitling. The movie was in English so it wasn't like I couldn't understand but the Japanese subtitles just did not cut it in terms of conveying some information. There of course were some cultural/technological tidbits that might have been difficult to translate and I understand that they only have a short amount of time to sync the subs with each speaker but some simple things were just left out. Unfortunately, the amount of people in the subbing business that do it accurately are few in number, or so my translation teachers in America tell me. I have a friend who wants to join this field but aside from her I hope more will enter as well to save it.
22:00 - Okay I'm on my bus back to Shinjuku and the Tokyo area but I must recount the events before and after the movie. The movie itself began at 16:45 and let out around 19:00 so I had plenty of time between the bus and then to go try my hand at shopping around there. I started in Hankyu Shopping Center which was a multi-floor mall in/around Osaka Station just before the movie. I went into Tokyu Hands - a craft store of sorts - and found the coolest thing. Now think back for a moment, if you are of my generation or older you will remember the advent of the erasable pen. It was pretty crazy to have a pen whose ink could be erased, just think of all the mistakes easily fixed. It was so widely used it was even required as part of our school supply lists each year. But the downside was when you went to erase something that had been written a while ago it left the ugliest smudges and you could basically still see what you wrote before. It wasn't a "perfect" invention. Well let me tell you, Japan (a Japanese man started it but apparently it's an "American" company) has done it again - I give you the Frixion rollerball pen. Unlike the Papermate erasable pens whose erasers seemed to have been modeled after the wooden pencil (hence the terrible quality of it), the Frixion pen's eraser must be of a different rubber substance. It doesn't take much to eliminate the mistake and then you can just begin again. So I bought two 0.7mm black and purple pens and two 0.35mm black slim pens plus enough refills to last me quite a while for each. Just take a look at this awesomeness.
After the movie I went Hep Five, a trendy little mall with a ton of young people stores - sweet! The fist few floors didn't really float my boat, I'm not a big fan of the super-girly-pink-pastels-floral-lacy look that seems to be pretty popular. Bus as I was walking around in Ingni I found a really cute shirt that I could see myself wearing to go dancing. My frugal frau gave me some allowances today so that shirt (whose tank top I thought came with but didn't) cost me about $40 (the middle picture), the tank top $20 but because I spent so much I got a discount (FF was happy to hear that).
Then I found a little accessory store and got $35 worth of rings and earrings. Lastly, on the "cool people" floor I found a store that was selling some decent hats for $5 and what appeared to be a handmade Bulls skirt (which I didn't buy) for $40. Yeah my jaw dropped on that one too.
I decided then that I should probably try to have some dinner before I left so I went to this place called Nicole's near my hotel. What drew me to it was that the sign read "Pasta and Sangrias". But of course, being the person who over plans and then messes everything up, I did not allow myself enough time to eat. I ran out of there so fast that the waiter who greeted me caught me on the stairs and said「大丈夫ですか？｣ - "Is everything alright?". To which I responded「はい、時間がありません。」- "Yes, I just don't have time.". I got my bags out of my precious locker and headed to Umeda Sky Tree where I'd catch my bus. By the time I arrived I realized that there was plenty of time to visit the Floating Garden Deck. The view was one of the most breathtaking I have ever seen, it nearly beats out that of Chicago's view from the Sears Tower (don't correct me, I said what I said!). It was definitely the place for the end of a romantic date (and there were a good deal of couples there) but since I couldn't find the door to the roof I didn't get to see the view from outside and any pictures I took came out blurry and dark so I jacked some from the internet. Nevertheless, I'm definitely bringing my boyfriend there.
All in all, Osaka was a really brilliant last minute decision - a get away within a wonderful learning experience. Not only have I gotten even better at navigating trains and adventures but I've grown a little more confident with my speaking (traveling alone will do that, lol). I'm proud to say that I can now cross another part of Japan off my visitation list although I still have the north/extreme north (Hokkaido | 北海道) and the extreme south (Okinawa | 沖縄) to see. Well this has been a pretty eventful week for me but it's back to the norm on Monday which I'm actually thankful for because I am getting tired of travel itself plus all the planning involved is ridiculous. Off to the land of The Game of Thrones (I love this book series!). Until next time, じゃまた！
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