better late than never, right?

Ok, I'm obviously not going to ever put up a real post about Osaka, so here's the pictures.

Basic outline - the day after I went to Kobe, I hit Osaka. First was the castle, but I accidentally found a giant fair put on by NHK, one of the really big TV stations here. Their mascot is really cute. His name is the king.

Next was the actual castle. This was neat becuase there was a museum in the middle of the castle, both because of and to make up for the fact that it was rebuilt in the early part of the 20th century out of ferroconcrete. It was also really neat because it was completely air conditioned and it was ridiculously hot outside.

On the way back, I saw one of the fair games. The object of the game is to knock out the teeth of this one TV show host. At least they have a sense of humor about their bad dentistry...

Next was Amerikamura (America town.) This is the worst picture ever and doesn't convey how strange/awesome/frightening it was. I think these are the most normal people I saw all day.

Here's what most of the girls look like:

It's called the gyaru (gal) style. I'm in love with it, and yet would never ever dress like this.

On my way back, I accidentally found Nanba (Namba? I dunno how to spell this in English). I had originally tried to go here first, but the JR Nanba station is really far from all the good stuff. I didn't have time to find the famous crab, but I did see this:

The Glico man's pretty famous to. He'll just have to do.

Oooh - Sex and the City just came on TV! It doesn't seem to be edited to quite the same extent as on UPN or WB or whatever it is at home. Too bad it's in Japanese...still, time to go.