Osaka

Getting from Hiroshima to Osaka was an experience. A frustrating, expensive experience. I bought a bus ticket for a 4 hour bus ride that was supposed to leave at 8 am so I show up at the bus station around 7:30 and start looking for the bus company's office to sign in. (By the way, it explicitly says on the website that you must sign in before you get on the bus.) I wonder around looking for the office and asking people for help unsuccessfully for over an hour and end up missing my bus. It turns out that I was supposed to walk into this giant parking lot filled with about 100 buses and somehow find which one was mine...sooo frustrating. Oh, and there is no office to sign in. Ugh. I finally manage to borrow someones cell phone to call customer service about finding another bus. When I ask about transferring my ticket the customer service guy simple responded "NO." I did the American thing and rephrased the question hoping to get an answer I liked better and yet again I was met with his favorite English word...NO. Finally I gave up and went into the train station to get a ticket. I somehow managed to buy a ticket on the fastest Shinkansen and was in Osaka an hour later and $150 poorer.

Anyway....Osaka is a really cool city. I spent yesterday wondering around some shopping malls the size of UT and exploring some different areas of town. The best thing was taking the glass elevator 173 meters high to the top of the Garden Observatory building. At the top is this giant circular deck where you can see the entire city. Osaka is a BIG place. I will upload some pictures when I get to a better computer...somehow I managed to stay in super sketchville part of town this time and this computer could blow up at any minute.

Although I have now been here around 2 weeks now, I still have not completely perfected my Japanese which led to a horribly embarrassing situation yesterday. The Japanese people are the most helpful people I ever met. If they can understand what you are asking, they are always willing to help you figure it out, and I am starting to get used to just approaching random people and asking them for help when I am lost. So yesterday we were looking for this specific restaurant for about 30 mins and finally decided to break down and ask someone. Sexy British guy wont do it -I guess guys have problems asking for directions in every country- so I head over to a group of kids that look around our age. I walk up and use the tactic that I have learned works the best so far: "Sumimasen, know....this.....restaurant? Where.....it.....is?" All said very slowly in broken English, because its easier to understand. One of the guys in the group just stares at me and replies..."No, I don't know where that restaurant is. I am not Japanese. I am from Taiwan, and I speak English. Thanks though...." Oops?