It's been a little bit since I've posted because I've been super busy in Japan. Orientation at school finally ended, and we started our actual classes this week. In addition to having to attend classes, now that everyone is more settled into Japan and more used to getting places here, we've been going out all the time. First of all, I wanna start off by posting some more campus photos (because I just can't get enough of how beautiful the campus is)
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| Waterfall and pond on campus |
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| Little bamboo forest |
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| Hi! |
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| The main grass field and library |
Other than the beautiful campus, the school cafeteria here has amazing food for extremely cheap. I'm not sure if the Japanese students think that the food is as amazing as I think it is, but honestly, coming from Vegas, I have already (sadly) accepted that school food = gross, low quality food. But the school cafeteria here has SO many options, and everything I've eaten so far has been really good.
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| Sukiyaki (tofu, soup, vegetables, and pork), fish, cold tofu, rice, and tea |
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| Green tea ice cream with sweet red bean and bits of mochi on the top |
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| Ramen for only $2!! |
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| Pork katsu curry, croquet, and tea |
Most of the meals I've had school do not exceed $4 U.S. dollars, and I always tend to get a lot of food because I'm constantly hungry. I am super satisfied.
Last weekend, some friends and I decided to go to Osaka, or more specifically, Namba. Even though I'm close to the Osaka area, I'm actually living in Kobe, and the school is in Nishinomiya. So before this trip, I haven't really been to the city part of Osaka much. After some trains and subways, we started our day.
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| Pre-going out selfie |
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| OOTD |
Side note - I absolutely love how a lot of Japanese restaurants have really pretty wax/plastic sculptures of the dishes that they serve on display outside their restaurant. I took a couple pictures of this.
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| So realistic |
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| They even have the chopsticks picking up the noodles mid-air |
Anyway, first, we visited the Pokemon Center in Umeda. I have never seen a dedicated Pokemon store in America, so just walking in was an entire experience.
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| Entrance with a huge Pokeball |
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| <3___<3 |
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| So many plushies, so little time |
I wanted to buy everything. Honestly, in Japan, it's hard not to want to buy everything. Everything is always so cute, neat, and well presented. There were so many different things here, from plushies to figurines to plates to backpacks to umbrellas. Everything that can have Pokemon printed on there was in the store. In the end, after much deliberation, I settled on buying these things:
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| Pokemon chopsticks |
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| Ditto Pikachu is too adorable and funny not to buy |
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| Limited edition Halloween pumpkin Pikachu |
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| A Scyther figurine for my boyf |
I was proud of myself for resisting the urge to buy everything, but I'm happy with the purchases that I made. After the Pokemon center, we went to Namba, a big shopping district in Osaka.
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| Streets on the way there |
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| Another picture of the streets |
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| Bridge overlooking a river in Namba! |
Namba is super busy compared to the residential area that I live in in Kobe. The weird thing is that you can really see the difference in the way people look too - people that I pass by everyday on the way to school in a smaller part of the city are much more conservative looking. In Namba, it's not uncommon to see more revealing clothing, more dramatic makeup, tattoos, and the such. It was really cool to see, and I was happy not to feel like I stand out anymore. The weather is Namba was beautiful - nice, cool breezes. We stopped by a few stores and arcades, which I didn't take pictures of...so I will try to describe them in words.
There were a few shops we stopped by on a street that was full of anime/manga things. It's crazy to see shops that are 5 floors all dedicated to anime and manga. It was even crazier to see all the hentai/pornographic books and pictures they had, and everyone who was shopping for it seemed to not be embarrassed at all by showing their interests in public. This came as a shock to me especially because Japan is typically more conservative when it comes to talking about those topics in public.
Another thing is - arcades. Arcades are amazing in Japan. We went to one that was 5 floors, each floor with a different theme. The first floor was all claw machines, the second floor was some more claw machines and casual games, the third floor was a lot of sports and shooting games, the fourth floor was music games and some motion detection games, and the fifth floor was all serious fighting games. Japan really takes its arcades seriously, and I'm impressed. I really wish arcades back in Vegas were better! Most of them do not exceed one floor and don't have a large selection of unique games.
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| Namba |
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| Dragon |
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| More streets of Namba |
After shopping around, we went to get dinner - of course, we had to get what is famous is Osaka - okonomiyaki!
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| Non-okonomiyaki appetizers - so delicious |
If you read my last post, I described what okonomiyaki was, but basically, it's a pancake-pizza-style food with various ingredients in it (and it is delicious). At our table, we all decided to order something different so we could share. We got takoyaki (grilled octopus and breading), yakisoba (noodles with meat and vegetables), mushroom, bacon, and cheese teppanyaki (grilled on a heated iron grill), and a seafood okonomiyaki. Unfortunately, by the time the okonomiyaki arrived, I was already too busy eating, so I didn't get a picture of it. But above is the picture of the takoyaki, yakisoba, and teppanyaki.
After dinner and more walking around and shopping we were all tired, so we decided to head home after a fulfilling day.
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