Japan 2004: Osaka
Mirrored from The Adventures of Holly.
Thursday April 8 2004
Today was one of the weirdest days of my life! We went on a huge ferris wheel on the top of a department store. J. and I were in an enclosed car with the teachers, which was funny, since Mrs K.’s afraid of heights and we were about 200 metres up! She almost had a heart attack when Ms D. climbed up and sat on the back of the seat to take a photo! She said ‘No, no, no! You’ll upset the balance! Oh kowai desu ne! We all just laughed at her and I was tempted to climb up too, but that might really have upset the balance!
We also discovered our convenience store and went shopping at this awesome place called Ame Mura (American Mall). I bought quite a lot of stuff, including earrings with Big Bird on them and a rubber peanut, which is funny.
There are also some very strange men here. While we were waiting for our teachers to come back to the meeting place at the end of the afternoon, we were approached by two men who kept asking us if we were British or American. One tried to touch A.’s leg and another one stroked my arm as he went past! o.O When the teachers got back Mrs K. shouted at them to go away, but then realised they didn’t speak English, so she shouted in Japanese instead! Ergh. I hope that was just a one-off incident and we don’t have to experience much more of that!
Tomorrow we’re going to Hiroshima for 6 nights in a homestay! I’m excited but scared too. I’ve no idea what to expect, but it should be fun. We’re also going to Himeji Castle tomorrow. I’ve seen photos of it and it’s touristy looking, but very pretty.
At the moment we’re staying in this weird little hotel with tiny rooms. The bathroom is raised from the floor and for some reason our electricity’s a bit odd. If you touch the door handle of the bathroom and leave one foot on the floor, you get an electric shock! It scared the crap out of me the first time it happened, and J. didn’t believe it really zapped me, until it happened at 1 o’clock in the morning and also made the bedside lamp on her side of the room flick on and off randomly!
Another thing you notice about Japan as soon as you arrive, are all the vending machines! It’s crazy! There’re just rows of them in the street! They sell hot and cold drinks, which is kind of strange. Some also sell alcohol (beer) and cigarettes, which would be unheard of (and probably illegal) back home! Surprisingly hardly any sell food though!? The vending machines are so convenient, I’ll miss them when we leave!
Myself and my lovely blurry edited friends eating okonomiyaki on our first night in Osaka. I was the most tired I had probably ever been in my life, thus the exasperated expression on my face! Also, please note the Big Bird earrings I mentioned earlier!
The giant ferris wheel we went on!
Ame Mura. Please note the large, fake Statue of Liberty on top of the building in the background!
This is Part 1 of a 4 part series requested on Twitter about my school trip to Japan in 2004 (Excuse the rambling writing style of my 16-year-old self!). This is an edited version of the diary I kept when I was there, and all the photographs were taken either by me, or by J. or B., the friends who are mentioned periodically.