Osaka Part 2

Saturday December 17th Evening and 18th Morning
After Akiko and Brian left us at the train station, Julian and I checked into our hotel. We stayed at a business hotel that some of the Australian teachers had recommended to us because it's decent, inexpensive and they have locations throughout Japan. It was located in the area we had wandered around all afternoon. The room was about the size of my old bedroom in America, probably a little smaller with a bathroom that we had to step-up into. After the big bowl of ramen and all of the walking we had done, both Julian and I fell asleep for a 3-4 hour nap.

We woke up and decided to go out at about 11:30 at night. I had spent hours reading the guidebooks, but for such a big city there was very little on the various nightclubs and bars we could go to. So, we walked all over 2 areas, Namba and Shinsaibashi. Within these areas, there's tons of shopping, restaurants, bars and nightclubs, plus an area call America-mura or an American town. Where you can find Harley Davidson and cowboy boots, and a big thriving hip-hop and electronica music sub-culture. Julian and I walked for 3 hours just wandering the streets of Osaka, looking at clubs, bars, restaurants, we were looking for one club in particular that was in the guidebook called "SoulFuckTry". We never found it and we really enjoyed walking around, but after 3 hours we were cold and tired, so we stopped in at the coolest, down to earth, little bar in Osaka! Drinks are generally 500 yen (about $5 or more in every bar in Japan). This bar was only 190 yen ($1.90) after 2am and 390 yen ($3.90) before 2am. The food was good and it was mostly Japanese people in the bar. The bartenders were way cool. We drank white Russians all night and ate yummy pizza and spent maybe $20 and luckily grabbed a cab back to the hotel because we were stumbling at that point.