I found my group of college constants in my junior year. We were all in the same major and had more or less the same classes. Though we all had highly contrasting work styles and distinct, strong personalities, our friendship was forged the way all millennial friendships are made: shared suffering and self-deprecating humor. It all started when we coordinated and took 3 of the same classes and worked on our junior thesis together. We spent late nights at each others apartments, binging on fast food and wiring ourselves on caffeine, trying to keep each other from falling asleep and missing major deadlines, and laughing at stupid memes at 3 AM.
Two years, a junior thesis, and a senior thesis later, once we had all recovered from the blur of senior finals, we found ourselves on a plane bound for Osaka, taking our first trip out of the country together.
You can only imagine how that turned out.
(At Sakuragawa station, from left to right: Martin in the back, absorbed with his phone and dealing with a 3-day cold; Paolo [lovingly called PB], smiling cluelessly at the camera; me [Justine], reacting to something Dana is saying; Friz, Dana's boyfriend, a wild blur in the background; and Dana, patiently trying to figure out where we are going. Josh is behind the camera, capturing it all.) All the photos I am using are Josh's. You can find his photography here: https://www.facebook.com/Vera-Photography
It was a beautiful, beautiful mess.
On our first full day, we went to the Osaka Castle, which is a must-see and a tourist spot worth visiting in the heart of the city. It's history-rich and beautiful, and recently the local government has been putting more and more money in restoring and maintaining Osaka park, where the castle can be seen. There are multiple entry points and many ways to get there, so it's easy to get lost. And we did. Get lost. Very lost. But we made it out okay.
We enjoyed snacking and tasting the different kinds of Japanese street food found in the park right outside the Castle . Since it's a tourist zone, the prices are a little jacked. Ice cream will go for Y500 and the takoyaki balls will go for Y800.
My biggest victory of the day was convincing Friz and Dana to pose for the camera and look at the food lovingly, like it was a newborn child. Honestly, it didn't take that much convincing and that was the best part.
We took a few photos by and around the photogenic castle and park.
This is PB, getting his hands wet and drinking from the fresh spring water at the park. We weren't sure if it was clean, but nothing bad happened to him so I guess it was.
This is me...
And this is my best friend, Dana...
And this is me and Dana.
And this is Josh, our patient and talented photographer, who finally let me take a photo of him by the castle.
Here is Martin ... trying.
We paid Y600 to get into the castle, view the museum inside it, and see the stunning 360-degree view of Osaka city proper. So beautiful and worth it.
I think this picture speaks for itself, really.
When we were done messing around, we took the trains to the Dotonburi area, where we walked around, saw the famous Glico man (we don't know why he's famous, but got a few pictures there anyway), and had dinner.
Above: the Dotonburi bridge (you can see the Glico man on the left, with his arms raised in victory)
Below: me, with the Glico man in the background. (this was impossible to capture without the right lighting)
It's a busy, noisy place and it's easy to get overwhelmed by all the signs and foreign characters. The trick is just to go for it: be adventurous and walk into a restaurant, ask for a menu, and see for yourself!
Dotonburi is basically one long indoor mall that takes about 50 minutes to walk from end to end. (We don't really have a scientific or standard way to measure this but we were going at what you'd probably describe as a California pace) and it connects to Shinsaibashi, a shopping district that is also one long stretch. There are smaller streets that run across and intersect the main Dotonburi walk. If nothing suits your fancy along the stretch, you can slip into any of the side streets and see what izakayas (small, intimate, dimly-lit Japanese bars and restaurants that fit about 6-15 people at a time) you might find there.
We had a really fun, really adventure-filled first day. Though it did not go by without a few bumps in the road and problems here and there (mostly because we were a bunch of hungry tourists getting lost in translation), it was all-in-all a great start to our vacation.
What followed was 3 more days of napping on trains, balancing everyone's eating and sleeping habits, and trying to get as much of our itinerary checked off as possible---- lots of crazy laughter and good fun. More to come!
x Justine