Golden Week- Osaka and Tokyo
For those that don’t know, Golden Week is a series of national holidays in Japan right around the beginning of May. It’s sorta like their version of Spring Break, though it affects both businesses and schools alike. This year, Golden Week started on Friday, April 29th with Showa Day and ended on Sunday, May 8th. Technically, Monday and Friday of that week weren’t holidays, but many people use vacation time to get the whole week off and travel... which is what Rachel and I did!
As a special note (mainly to explain why Rachel’s wearing a wig and I look like I’m scowling in half the pictures), some of our favourite anime characters are from the city of Osaka, so we took the liberty of dressing up in sorta surreptitious costumes of them for a few of our outings. XP
On Friday the 28th, Rachel and I took a night bus from Takasaki city in Gunma to Osaka, in middle-southern Japan. I’d visited there for a day trip waaaay back in high school when my school’s Sister City Club went to Japan, but didn’t have tons of time to see the sights or anything. Rachel had never been, so we made sure we had a long enough stay to explore a little.
Friday 4/29-
We arrived at 11am in a large, busy, touristy area near Nanba Station. As it turned out, all of the stuff we wanted to see (including our hotel) was all within reach of two train lines (the Midousuji Line and the Chuuoh Line). Very convenient for Osaka-outsiders, though it put Osaka city in a little more perspective as compared to Tokyo.
Basically, Tokyo’s gigantic and Osaka isn’t.
After wandering for an hour or so and getting some lunch (and stumbling upon the famous Doutonbori street, that we would explore more thoroughly later), we made our way to the Chisun Hotel near Esaka Station, our home for the next few days.
Hotel prices in Osaka as compared to Tokyo are MUCH cheaper (the price for two of us staying in Osaka for 4 days was the same as the price for one of us staying in Tokyo for the same duration) and the hotel itself was a bit more posh. Fancy baths and a massage parlor on the top floor, attached restaurant, spiffy lobby, etc. However, when we got to our room, we found that it was about half the size of the room we usually get in our Ikebukuro hotel. So compact, in fact, that the only floor space was under the bed... which lead to this rather ingenious setup.
The bathroom, too, was rather space-saving, as the shower itself was actually the entire bathroom.
And, of course, I find Japanese toilets to be hilarious, so have a token toilet picture.
We’d planned on taking it easy on our first day, so all we did other than check in was search for the Pokemon Center store near Osaka Station and some karaoke.
Saturday 4/30
Having not completely planned out exactly what we wanted to do in Osaka besides a vague sort of “They have good food there right? And temples and stuff. Yeah,” Saturday we decided would be a good day to visit the famous aquarium, Kaiyukan. It’s apparently one of the biggest in the world and is accompanied by a similarly world-famously-big ferris wheel near the complex.
First we wandered near the docks, looking at a cool pirate-y ship, and dinning in a cool cafe. Then we took the ferris wheel for a spin.
Pirate Ship!
Ferris Wheel!
The aquarium was also awesome.
I love rays, so yeah!
The turtles were too fast to take a good picture, sadly.
And the freaky crabs!
Afterward, the two of us met up with a friend of ours (Meg), who lives in the Kansai area, for dinner. We all tried out a new Mexican restaurant (very tasty) and went to karaoke afterward. Not our favourite, fancy kind of karaoke, but still a ton of fun!
Sunday 5/1
On Sunday we split the day between cosplaying and going to the theatre. We looked up an event to attend, a dance party, and ventured out with the intent to find out how different Osaka cosplay events are from Tokyo ones. Weelll, it felt a lot like a middle school dance party at first. XD Most of the people were hanging out on the edges of the auditorium and not dancing for most of it. The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed than it might have been elsewhere, but still a little awkward because almost everyone else was obviously feeling a little awkward. However, one thing that I noticed at other cosplay dance parties I’ve been to in Tokyo is that almost everyone (and I really do mean it) knows specific dances for each song. O_O It’s the scariest, most hive-mind crazy thing I’ve ever seen, watching an entire room of strangers all know exactly which dance is supposed to go with which song. But in Osaka, things were a lot less planned out, or at least the cosplayers were a little less hardcore, since most of the people there just sorta did whichever dance they knew. There were still a few dances were people seemed to know a song-specific dance, but for the most part, it was more free style. All-in-all, fun, but I do feel like I should learn dance routines before going to another cosplay dance party. (Now I just have to find out where everyone else learns them...)
Us at the dance party.
The last half of the day was spent watching a play by the very famous Takarazuka performance group. Takarazuka performers are all women (meaning women play the male roles in the stories as well) and are specially trained at a specific performing arts school from a very young age. The actresses and their plays are extremely popular in Japan, (with a mostly 30-year-old plus, female fanbase) and the plays are treated in a similar manner to touring Broadway companies in America. The Takarazuka actresses are further broken down into “troupes” (Flower, Moon, Star, etc.) and within those troupes there are very popular performers, the most popular performers are called top stars.
Unlike the small theatre performances I’m used to seeing or even the larger musical performances like Tenimyu, Takarazuka shows are definitely of a higher grade and grander scale. The play Rachel and I saw was called “Kuroi Hitomi” (or “Black Eyes”), performed by the Snow Troupe. It was a Russian story about a young soldier and his accidental befriending of the Cossack leader and love of a young village girl. The sets, costumes, singing, dancing, and acting were all beautiful. The characters were a bit flat and the love story rather dry, but it was still very fun to watch. The after show (which is basically a bunch of dance numbers all strung together) was called “Rock On” and ohhhh man, was it sparkly! Practically every costume they changed into (which BTW, was a different one for every song) had sequins and/or ruffles and quite a few of them had feathers. It was quite a sight to see! Totally wouldn’t mind going again!
Monday 5/2
Rachel and I played tourist at a famous old temple in the middle of Osaka called Shitennouji. Very beautiful, very old (even considering most temples in Japan were destroyed at one point or another).
And it had turtles!!
One of the most iconic places in Osaka is the Doutonbori street. It’s full of souvenir shops, restaurants, game centers, and other flashy shopping centers. It’s right next to the canal and... basically, if you ask anyone to talk about Osaka, they’ll mention something from that street (the Glico billboard, the Don Quijote store, the moving crab sign, etc). Rachel and I explored it quite thoroughly, in that we actually walked all the way there from Shitennouji (about 2km away) and then walked around all the side streets.
Look! The moving crab sign!
And Don Quijote! They actually have these stores in many places around Japan. They’re sorta like import stores that sell just about anything, from clothes to food to video games to vibrators. There were boat tours down the canal right in front of the store, which were fun to watch. At one point, the guide was having everyone in the boat wave to the people near the docks (where Rachel and I were) and they waved at us. Boatman even attempted some English with a nice “How are you?” I later lamented that I didn’t respond in the Osaka dialect and was hoping for a chance to bust that out some other time during our trip, but the moment never came again. *sigh*
And of course, it wouldn’t have been a real trip to Osaka if we didn’t sample the traditional Kansai cuisine of takoyaki (fried balls of dough with octopus pieces in the center, topped with sauce, seaweed flakes and mayonnaise) and okonomiyaki (dinner pancakes made with similar ingredients to the takoyaki but with more vegetables added).
And finally, on our way out of the area, we passed the weirdest fucking statues I’ve ever seen in my life. So, of course, Rachel went to pose and we took a picture. XD
Tuesday 5/3
Tuesday morning we met up with Meg again to visit America Mura, or America Village. Basically, it’s a couple streets in Osaka that lots of Americans gravitate to because it has American brand stores and stuff. I was hoping it’d be kinda like going to Japan Town in San Francisco only reversed, but sadly, it wasn’t really all that cool. Plus, there weren’t any coin lockers in the station big enough to store our luggage (since we’d checked out of the hotel) so we had to carry them around with us, which was pretty cumbersome and annoying.
One, err... ‘highlight’ of the trip was getting unwittingly hit on by a random Chinese exchange student. I completely failed to notice that we were getting picked up and just answered his questions and stuff when he talked to us. Gave him directions to the station at one point and was just generally a little confused. Rachel and Meg told me later that he was hitting on us, which I still didn’t quite believe until we accidentally ran into him again and he asked for my phone number. I told him that I didn’t have my phone on me and when he asked if I use Facebook, I said nope. x.x; Well, it made for a point of interest around Ame-Mura?
After lunch at a MosBurger restaurant and some awesome talks about life, cosplay, and how Meg really needs to hang out with us more often, Rachel and I made our way to Shin-Osaka Station to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. The bus we took to get to Osaka took about twelve hours to get there from Gunma. The Shinkansen ride back to Tokyo (admittedly a little closer than Gunma, but not by much) only took two and a half hours. <3 The rest of the day was fairly calm. Checking into our hotel, getting some Mexican food, etc.
Shinkansen, or Bullet Train.
Wednesday 5/4
Oddly enough, after cosplaying in Osaka, Rachel and I hadn’t quite gotten our fill of dressing up, so we searched online for any other cosplay events going on in Tokyo during our stay. We totally hadn’t realised it, but the second biggest comic convention in Tokyo, Super Comic City, was going on both Tuesday and Wednesday of our stay in the city. And not only was it a huge cosplay chance, it fit into our schedule that we’d be going on JUMP comics day, which includes Tenipuri. (The event is so large that they split what comics and animes are showcased so that they can fit everyone into the halls.) O_O So, our Wednesday became Super Comic City day, with the same costumes that we wore to the Osaka dance party. Slightly more recognition there, but still not a ton. Unsurprising, because we were cosplaying as minor characters in a seldom seen version of their costumes.
Me as Zaizen Hikaru (from DL7th):
Rachel as Oshitari Kenya (also from DL7th)
Bought lots of comics and some pin badges for Tenipuri. All in all, a totally great way to spend a random Wednesday, especially given that we hadn’t planned for it at all. xD;
Thursday 5/5
One of the main reasons we came back to Tokyo after our Osaka venture was because we had tickets to the newest run of the famous musical Les Miserables. In Japanese! <3 With a couple actors that I knew in it! (Abe Yoshitsugu as Enjolras and Fujita Rei as a chorus member)
Okay, so remember how impressed I was with the Takarazuka performance? Double or triple that and you might get close to how impressed I was with LesMiz. <3 Absolutely everything was high quality (the staging, the costumes, the sets, the live orchestra, the ACTING and SINGING!) and completely enthralling for the whole 3 hours worth of performance. It really made me wish that I could be in it and sing all those songs. Guh! <3 The only actor that I wasn’t terribly thrilled with was the older Cosette. Her voice was really nasally, though other than that she was fine. So good, I bought the CD soundtrack, though I had to settle for a different version that what I watched live because they haven’t made CDs for this run yet.
We went to the play as a group of 5 foreigners, (Liz, Becca, Kimberly, and me and Rachel) and swung by TGIFridays afterward to celebrate Kimberly’s birthday. She’s a new acquaintance that doesn’t quite live in Tokyo, I don’t think, but it was great hanging out with everyone! Funnily enough, though, Rachel and I had planned dinner with our other friend, Court, at TGIFridays, too. So, we left the Ueno Fridays with a batch of foreigners to join Court at the Ikebukuro Fridays. XD
Friday 5/ 6
Friday was left for shopping and lunch with Court. Lunch was a nice restaurant called Ducky Duck, that specializes in cakes. *_* So, lunch was half cake. XD And as if we didn’t have enough comics from Super Comic City, we went out comic shopping again. Ikebukuro is a wonderful place for used comic shopping, so since we were in the area and all... XP
After that, we said goodbye for now to Court and went fabric shopping in Shibuya. Rachel and I always have to stock up on fabric things while we’re in Tokyo because we still haven’t found a good fabric store around Gunma. I’m sure there must be one somewhere, but I have yet to find it. This time we were in the market for brightly-coloured, sequined, sparkly fabric for some costumes we’re making for the summer. XP
And finally, we ended the evening with the continuation of a movie we watched in winter, GANTZ. Epic and kinda violent, but well performed and definitely interesting enough that after watching the first part, we really wanted to see the conclusion when it came out in theatres. It even had a happy ending (which is odd for a Japanese film)! 8D
Saturday 5/7
It was pouring rain, but we still wandered around Ikebukuro to kill time until our bus back to Gunma. We were stronger than the rain, though, (and I personally hate carrying around umbrellas) so we braved it without. One memorable moment was when we found a random guy walking down the street who looked sorta like he was wearing a costume from our favourite TV show. Upon further inspection, we found he really was just dressed up as Shoutarou from Kamen Rider W and hanging out around Ikebukuro for no apparent reason. XD Made me feel like less of a social failure for when Rachel and I were wandering around Osaka in character-specific outfits. Japanese people do it, too! XP
Besides the rain, Saturday was fairly uneventful. We bused back to Gunma and went to Rachel’s house. My car wasn’t towed or anything, so everything was good. I spent the night, but went home early on Sunday to do some much needed laundry and cleaning before work on Monday.
And that was my Golden Week! <3 Sorry most of the pictures are from Osaka, but then, that was the main part of the vacation.
~ <3
As a special note (mainly to explain why Rachel’s wearing a wig and I look like I’m scowling in half the pictures), some of our favourite anime characters are from the city of Osaka, so we took the liberty of dressing up in sorta surreptitious costumes of them for a few of our outings. XP
On Friday the 28th, Rachel and I took a night bus from Takasaki city in Gunma to Osaka, in middle-southern Japan. I’d visited there for a day trip waaaay back in high school when my school’s Sister City Club went to Japan, but didn’t have tons of time to see the sights or anything. Rachel had never been, so we made sure we had a long enough stay to explore a little.
Friday 4/29-
We arrived at 11am in a large, busy, touristy area near Nanba Station. As it turned out, all of the stuff we wanted to see (including our hotel) was all within reach of two train lines (the Midousuji Line and the Chuuoh Line). Very convenient for Osaka-outsiders, though it put Osaka city in a little more perspective as compared to Tokyo.
Basically, Tokyo’s gigantic and Osaka isn’t.
After wandering for an hour or so and getting some lunch (and stumbling upon the famous Doutonbori street, that we would explore more thoroughly later), we made our way to the Chisun Hotel near Esaka Station, our home for the next few days.
Hotel prices in Osaka as compared to Tokyo are MUCH cheaper (the price for two of us staying in Osaka for 4 days was the same as the price for one of us staying in Tokyo for the same duration) and the hotel itself was a bit more posh. Fancy baths and a massage parlor on the top floor, attached restaurant, spiffy lobby, etc. However, when we got to our room, we found that it was about half the size of the room we usually get in our Ikebukuro hotel. So compact, in fact, that the only floor space was under the bed... which lead to this rather ingenious setup.
The bathroom, too, was rather space-saving, as the shower itself was actually the entire bathroom.
And, of course, I find Japanese toilets to be hilarious, so have a token toilet picture.
We’d planned on taking it easy on our first day, so all we did other than check in was search for the Pokemon Center store near Osaka Station and some karaoke.
Saturday 4/30
Having not completely planned out exactly what we wanted to do in Osaka besides a vague sort of “They have good food there right? And temples and stuff. Yeah,” Saturday we decided would be a good day to visit the famous aquarium, Kaiyukan. It’s apparently one of the biggest in the world and is accompanied by a similarly world-famously-big ferris wheel near the complex.
First we wandered near the docks, looking at a cool pirate-y ship, and dinning in a cool cafe. Then we took the ferris wheel for a spin.
Pirate Ship!
Ferris Wheel!
The aquarium was also awesome.
I love rays, so yeah!
The turtles were too fast to take a good picture, sadly.
And the freaky crabs!
Afterward, the two of us met up with a friend of ours (Meg), who lives in the Kansai area, for dinner. We all tried out a new Mexican restaurant (very tasty) and went to karaoke afterward. Not our favourite, fancy kind of karaoke, but still a ton of fun!
Sunday 5/1
On Sunday we split the day between cosplaying and going to the theatre. We looked up an event to attend, a dance party, and ventured out with the intent to find out how different Osaka cosplay events are from Tokyo ones. Weelll, it felt a lot like a middle school dance party at first. XD Most of the people were hanging out on the edges of the auditorium and not dancing for most of it. The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed than it might have been elsewhere, but still a little awkward because almost everyone else was obviously feeling a little awkward. However, one thing that I noticed at other cosplay dance parties I’ve been to in Tokyo is that almost everyone (and I really do mean it) knows specific dances for each song. O_O It’s the scariest, most hive-mind crazy thing I’ve ever seen, watching an entire room of strangers all know exactly which dance is supposed to go with which song. But in Osaka, things were a lot less planned out, or at least the cosplayers were a little less hardcore, since most of the people there just sorta did whichever dance they knew. There were still a few dances were people seemed to know a song-specific dance, but for the most part, it was more free style. All-in-all, fun, but I do feel like I should learn dance routines before going to another cosplay dance party. (Now I just have to find out where everyone else learns them...)
Us at the dance party.
The last half of the day was spent watching a play by the very famous Takarazuka performance group. Takarazuka performers are all women (meaning women play the male roles in the stories as well) and are specially trained at a specific performing arts school from a very young age. The actresses and their plays are extremely popular in Japan, (with a mostly 30-year-old plus, female fanbase) and the plays are treated in a similar manner to touring Broadway companies in America. The Takarazuka actresses are further broken down into “troupes” (Flower, Moon, Star, etc.) and within those troupes there are very popular performers, the most popular performers are called top stars.
Unlike the small theatre performances I’m used to seeing or even the larger musical performances like Tenimyu, Takarazuka shows are definitely of a higher grade and grander scale. The play Rachel and I saw was called “Kuroi Hitomi” (or “Black Eyes”), performed by the Snow Troupe. It was a Russian story about a young soldier and his accidental befriending of the Cossack leader and love of a young village girl. The sets, costumes, singing, dancing, and acting were all beautiful. The characters were a bit flat and the love story rather dry, but it was still very fun to watch. The after show (which is basically a bunch of dance numbers all strung together) was called “Rock On” and ohhhh man, was it sparkly! Practically every costume they changed into (which BTW, was a different one for every song) had sequins and/or ruffles and quite a few of them had feathers. It was quite a sight to see! Totally wouldn’t mind going again!
Monday 5/2
Rachel and I played tourist at a famous old temple in the middle of Osaka called Shitennouji. Very beautiful, very old (even considering most temples in Japan were destroyed at one point or another).
And it had turtles!!
One of the most iconic places in Osaka is the Doutonbori street. It’s full of souvenir shops, restaurants, game centers, and other flashy shopping centers. It’s right next to the canal and... basically, if you ask anyone to talk about Osaka, they’ll mention something from that street (the Glico billboard, the Don Quijote store, the moving crab sign, etc). Rachel and I explored it quite thoroughly, in that we actually walked all the way there from Shitennouji (about 2km away) and then walked around all the side streets.
Look! The moving crab sign!
And Don Quijote! They actually have these stores in many places around Japan. They’re sorta like import stores that sell just about anything, from clothes to food to video games to vibrators. There were boat tours down the canal right in front of the store, which were fun to watch. At one point, the guide was having everyone in the boat wave to the people near the docks (where Rachel and I were) and they waved at us. Boatman even attempted some English with a nice “How are you?” I later lamented that I didn’t respond in the Osaka dialect and was hoping for a chance to bust that out some other time during our trip, but the moment never came again. *sigh*
And of course, it wouldn’t have been a real trip to Osaka if we didn’t sample the traditional Kansai cuisine of takoyaki (fried balls of dough with octopus pieces in the center, topped with sauce, seaweed flakes and mayonnaise) and okonomiyaki (dinner pancakes made with similar ingredients to the takoyaki but with more vegetables added).
And finally, on our way out of the area, we passed the weirdest fucking statues I’ve ever seen in my life. So, of course, Rachel went to pose and we took a picture. XD
Tuesday 5/3
Tuesday morning we met up with Meg again to visit America Mura, or America Village. Basically, it’s a couple streets in Osaka that lots of Americans gravitate to because it has American brand stores and stuff. I was hoping it’d be kinda like going to Japan Town in San Francisco only reversed, but sadly, it wasn’t really all that cool. Plus, there weren’t any coin lockers in the station big enough to store our luggage (since we’d checked out of the hotel) so we had to carry them around with us, which was pretty cumbersome and annoying.
One, err... ‘highlight’ of the trip was getting unwittingly hit on by a random Chinese exchange student. I completely failed to notice that we were getting picked up and just answered his questions and stuff when he talked to us. Gave him directions to the station at one point and was just generally a little confused. Rachel and Meg told me later that he was hitting on us, which I still didn’t quite believe until we accidentally ran into him again and he asked for my phone number. I told him that I didn’t have my phone on me and when he asked if I use Facebook, I said nope. x.x; Well, it made for a point of interest around Ame-Mura?
After lunch at a MosBurger restaurant and some awesome talks about life, cosplay, and how Meg really needs to hang out with us more often, Rachel and I made our way to Shin-Osaka Station to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. The bus we took to get to Osaka took about twelve hours to get there from Gunma. The Shinkansen ride back to Tokyo (admittedly a little closer than Gunma, but not by much) only took two and a half hours. <3 The rest of the day was fairly calm. Checking into our hotel, getting some Mexican food, etc.
Shinkansen, or Bullet Train.
Wednesday 5/4
Oddly enough, after cosplaying in Osaka, Rachel and I hadn’t quite gotten our fill of dressing up, so we searched online for any other cosplay events going on in Tokyo during our stay. We totally hadn’t realised it, but the second biggest comic convention in Tokyo, Super Comic City, was going on both Tuesday and Wednesday of our stay in the city. And not only was it a huge cosplay chance, it fit into our schedule that we’d be going on JUMP comics day, which includes Tenipuri. (The event is so large that they split what comics and animes are showcased so that they can fit everyone into the halls.) O_O So, our Wednesday became Super Comic City day, with the same costumes that we wore to the Osaka dance party. Slightly more recognition there, but still not a ton. Unsurprising, because we were cosplaying as minor characters in a seldom seen version of their costumes.
Me as Zaizen Hikaru (from DL7th):
Rachel as Oshitari Kenya (also from DL7th)
Bought lots of comics and some pin badges for Tenipuri. All in all, a totally great way to spend a random Wednesday, especially given that we hadn’t planned for it at all. xD;
Thursday 5/5
One of the main reasons we came back to Tokyo after our Osaka venture was because we had tickets to the newest run of the famous musical Les Miserables. In Japanese! <3 With a couple actors that I knew in it! (Abe Yoshitsugu as Enjolras and Fujita Rei as a chorus member)
Okay, so remember how impressed I was with the Takarazuka performance? Double or triple that and you might get close to how impressed I was with LesMiz. <3 Absolutely everything was high quality (the staging, the costumes, the sets, the live orchestra, the ACTING and SINGING!) and completely enthralling for the whole 3 hours worth of performance. It really made me wish that I could be in it and sing all those songs. Guh! <3 The only actor that I wasn’t terribly thrilled with was the older Cosette. Her voice was really nasally, though other than that she was fine. So good, I bought the CD soundtrack, though I had to settle for a different version that what I watched live because they haven’t made CDs for this run yet.
We went to the play as a group of 5 foreigners, (Liz, Becca, Kimberly, and me and Rachel) and swung by TGIFridays afterward to celebrate Kimberly’s birthday. She’s a new acquaintance that doesn’t quite live in Tokyo, I don’t think, but it was great hanging out with everyone! Funnily enough, though, Rachel and I had planned dinner with our other friend, Court, at TGIFridays, too. So, we left the Ueno Fridays with a batch of foreigners to join Court at the Ikebukuro Fridays. XD
Friday 5/ 6
Friday was left for shopping and lunch with Court. Lunch was a nice restaurant called Ducky Duck, that specializes in cakes. *_* So, lunch was half cake. XD And as if we didn’t have enough comics from Super Comic City, we went out comic shopping again. Ikebukuro is a wonderful place for used comic shopping, so since we were in the area and all... XP
After that, we said goodbye for now to Court and went fabric shopping in Shibuya. Rachel and I always have to stock up on fabric things while we’re in Tokyo because we still haven’t found a good fabric store around Gunma. I’m sure there must be one somewhere, but I have yet to find it. This time we were in the market for brightly-coloured, sequined, sparkly fabric for some costumes we’re making for the summer. XP
And finally, we ended the evening with the continuation of a movie we watched in winter, GANTZ. Epic and kinda violent, but well performed and definitely interesting enough that after watching the first part, we really wanted to see the conclusion when it came out in theatres. It even had a happy ending (which is odd for a Japanese film)! 8D
Saturday 5/7
It was pouring rain, but we still wandered around Ikebukuro to kill time until our bus back to Gunma. We were stronger than the rain, though, (and I personally hate carrying around umbrellas) so we braved it without. One memorable moment was when we found a random guy walking down the street who looked sorta like he was wearing a costume from our favourite TV show. Upon further inspection, we found he really was just dressed up as Shoutarou from Kamen Rider W and hanging out around Ikebukuro for no apparent reason. XD Made me feel like less of a social failure for when Rachel and I were wandering around Osaka in character-specific outfits. Japanese people do it, too! XP
Besides the rain, Saturday was fairly uneventful. We bused back to Gunma and went to Rachel’s house. My car wasn’t towed or anything, so everything was good. I spent the night, but went home early on Sunday to do some much needed laundry and cleaning before work on Monday.
And that was my Golden Week! <3 Sorry most of the pictures are from Osaka, but then, that was the main part of the vacation.
~ <3