Picture Diary 9: Aikido and Osaka (Den Den Town)
My Friday Project this weekend was Aikido (a kind of martial art), and on Saturday, I took a day trip to Osaka, where I spent pretty much all of my time in Den Den Town, the electronics shopping district (like Akihabara, but smaller).
For the Aikido project, a group of students from the Aikido Club at Shiga Dai(gaku), a nearby college, came to demonstrate for us and teach us a little.
Aikido is a martial art focused on self defense that doesn't hurt your attacker. Ideally, you'll redirect the force of their attacks so that you can get away (or something like that).
It was really cool to watch the club members demonstrating. Their movements were so smooth, almost more like a dance than fighting (but at the end with one of them rolling to the ground).
I can't say that I learned very much in the lesson part of the event (I think I've already forgotten the one or two moves that we tried), but it was fun nonetheless. I really wanted to ask to take a picture with all of the club members after it was over, but I was just too shy.
Anyway, on Saturday morning a group of us met to go to Osaka. Originally, it was just going to be Mallory and me, but we heard that others were planning on going to Den Den Town (our destination), so we decided to all go at once.
In Osaka Station. There was a moving walkway with a cool wall that lit up (sorry for the blurriness ...).
Once we got to Den Den Town, we split off into smaller groups and began to explore.
In case you're not aware, Gundam is a wildly popular franchise in Japan involving giant robots. This store had models, uniforms, and all kinds of Gundam-related stuff.
Den-Den-Town! "Den" (電) means "electric;" it's the prefix used in train (densha), lights (denki), telephone (denwa), etc. So, Den-Den-Town is something like "Electric/electronics Town."
Four of our group, Jeff, Mike, Mallory and I, decided to meet up after a few hours. We ate an early dinner then explored some more. Den-Den-Town wasn't as impressive as Akihabara, but it was still interesting.
Mike, Jeff, and Mallory. At one point, all four of us had a C.C. Lemon craving. C.C. Lemon is this wonderful drink that's something like carbonated lemonade (but, more lemon-y?). I haven't met anyone who doesn't like it. With all four of us drinking it, we joked that Suntory (the maker of C.C. Lemon) should hire us on for a marketing campaign. This would be the picture on our ad.
"Please to enjoy the power of 70 lemons!" (Yes, this is a self-portrait -- am I good at product placement or what? ^_^) Note: C.C. Lemon has 70 lemon's worth of vitamin C, according to the label.
After the C.C. Lemon had worn off (and we had expended all the cash we were willing to expend on shopping), we stopped by a cafe for cake and coffee.
Alas, this time the food didn't taste quite as good as it looks here.
It was time to head back to Osaka station (Den-Den-Town is a few stops removed). But before we left the city altogether, we hung out in the station itself for a while -- Japan's train stations are really neat places.
A mural.
A giant clock (yes, it was already past 10 p.m. at this point).
I was fascinated by the hourglass in the clock.
A Snoopy balloon on the ceiling.
The incredible mural on the wall behind the hourglass. I love the kangaroos!
Since we mostly just shopped around (and many stores don't allow pictures inside), I don't have nearly as many pictures as I might otherwise. I hope to go back to Osaka and see some of the other areas of town; it's only about an hour and a half by train, and something like $30 round trip, so returning would definitely be feasible. Since the group of us consisted of half our Tokyo group, it was almost like being back in Tokyo. I think living in Japan has made me like big cities a bit more -- here, I never need to worry about traffic since I take the train everywhere, and I've always felt fairly safe. I'm especially thankful that I've found others who want to travel to different cities; it gives me the chance to tag along.
Anyway, that's about it for this weekend. I don't know what my next event will be -- maybe I'll even get time for a picture-less post in the future! At some I would simply like to talk about differences between living in the U.S. and in Japan. With this semester halfway over (!!!), I have a lot of new experiences under my belt, but I want to experience so much more before I leave.
For the Aikido project, a group of students from the Aikido Club at Shiga Dai(gaku), a nearby college, came to demonstrate for us and teach us a little.
Aikido is a martial art focused on self defense that doesn't hurt your attacker. Ideally, you'll redirect the force of their attacks so that you can get away (or something like that).
It was really cool to watch the club members demonstrating. Their movements were so smooth, almost more like a dance than fighting (but at the end with one of them rolling to the ground).
I can't say that I learned very much in the lesson part of the event (I think I've already forgotten the one or two moves that we tried), but it was fun nonetheless. I really wanted to ask to take a picture with all of the club members after it was over, but I was just too shy.
Anyway, on Saturday morning a group of us met to go to Osaka. Originally, it was just going to be Mallory and me, but we heard that others were planning on going to Den Den Town (our destination), so we decided to all go at once.
In Osaka Station. There was a moving walkway with a cool wall that lit up (sorry for the blurriness ...).
Once we got to Den Den Town, we split off into smaller groups and began to explore.
In case you're not aware, Gundam is a wildly popular franchise in Japan involving giant robots. This store had models, uniforms, and all kinds of Gundam-related stuff.
Den-Den-Town! "Den" (電) means "electric;" it's the prefix used in train (densha), lights (denki), telephone (denwa), etc. So, Den-Den-Town is something like "Electric/electronics Town."
Four of our group, Jeff, Mike, Mallory and I, decided to meet up after a few hours. We ate an early dinner then explored some more. Den-Den-Town wasn't as impressive as Akihabara, but it was still interesting.
Mike, Jeff, and Mallory. At one point, all four of us had a C.C. Lemon craving. C.C. Lemon is this wonderful drink that's something like carbonated lemonade (but, more lemon-y?). I haven't met anyone who doesn't like it. With all four of us drinking it, we joked that Suntory (the maker of C.C. Lemon) should hire us on for a marketing campaign. This would be the picture on our ad.
"Please to enjoy the power of 70 lemons!" (Yes, this is a self-portrait -- am I good at product placement or what? ^_^) Note: C.C. Lemon has 70 lemon's worth of vitamin C, according to the label.
After the C.C. Lemon had worn off (and we had expended all the cash we were willing to expend on shopping), we stopped by a cafe for cake and coffee.
Alas, this time the food didn't taste quite as good as it looks here.
It was time to head back to Osaka station (Den-Den-Town is a few stops removed). But before we left the city altogether, we hung out in the station itself for a while -- Japan's train stations are really neat places.
A mural.
A giant clock (yes, it was already past 10 p.m. at this point).
I was fascinated by the hourglass in the clock.
A Snoopy balloon on the ceiling.
The incredible mural on the wall behind the hourglass. I love the kangaroos!
Since we mostly just shopped around (and many stores don't allow pictures inside), I don't have nearly as many pictures as I might otherwise. I hope to go back to Osaka and see some of the other areas of town; it's only about an hour and a half by train, and something like $30 round trip, so returning would definitely be feasible. Since the group of us consisted of half our Tokyo group, it was almost like being back in Tokyo. I think living in Japan has made me like big cities a bit more -- here, I never need to worry about traffic since I take the train everywhere, and I've always felt fairly safe. I'm especially thankful that I've found others who want to travel to different cities; it gives me the chance to tag along.
Anyway, that's about it for this weekend. I don't know what my next event will be -- maybe I'll even get time for a picture-less post in the future! At some I would simply like to talk about differences between living in the U.S. and in Japan. With this semester halfway over (!!!), I have a lot of new experiences under my belt, but I want to experience so much more before I leave.