Day 11 - Sept. 15th
When we arrived in Osaka, we went two hours ahead again. We were not 13 hours ahead of Charlotte and 15 hours ahead of Belize. Needless to say, we all slept in and slowly rolled out of bed around 10:30 to 11am. Once we all had gotten our brains wrapped around where we were, we headed out to see Osaka Castle. Anna stayed home and rested, as her back was hurting a bit. Olivia, LT, and I grabbed a cab over to the castle.
The compound, if I can say that, was at the center of the city and was absolutely breathtaking. The architecture and ground were maticulous. The place was swarming with visitors. Osaka Castle was built in 1587 and was definitely built to withstand not only time but enemies. The wood beams at the gate were massive made from solid trees, dovetailed with no nails - very impressive. The castle itself stood far above the rest of the landscape towering above the now city. Again - very impressive. We all walked around for a bit and then decide to head to a rooftop cafe in one of the new buildings to accommodate tourists for shops and food places.
We left the castle to go have lunch in an area called Main Street. Olivia, LT, and I went to a super yummy grill plate restaurant. We had everything from Wasago beef to liver, to goodness who knows what. All I can tell you is that everything we had there was absolutely delicious. In Japanese they call the type of restaurant a Monjayaki - it is food served and prepared on a hot plate or grill. Fully satisfied, we hopped over to a slots house. Olivia crushed it!
At 4pm we headed back to the house and got Mom moving. The kids stayed home and Anna and I went back to the area the kids and I were at earlier for a little dinner. The food was amazing. As we got close to being done with our meal, Olivia popped in the restaurant. Anna and I tried our luck at the slots place for about 10 minutes, while the kids grabbed some grub at one of the local restaurants and then we made our way home.
We stopped at a Lawsons, a local 7-11 type store, and grabbed all kinds of snacks and then ended up walking home.
Olivia and I decided to head back out around 10:30pm as the rest of the crew was sleeping. We went back by main street and went into a bar called Heavens Kitchen. There were only 9 people in the bar including the owner so when they heard we lived near Mexico, they all shouted Tequila. Pretty funny actually. We ended up buying several rounds of Tequila shots for everyone and just had an incredible time. We spoke to the owner quite a bit and before we managed to crawl out of there at 2am, they graciously gave Olivia and I t-shirts and real Japanese hand fans.
We then ended up stopping by a place called Seven Days and had a few drinks before starting to sing karaoke. We both sang 2-3 songs each and opted to head back to Heavens Kitchen. We closed the place down and headed home at 5am.
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