Final Weekend: Osaka Castle

So, our first weekend we set out to see the Osaka Castle, but got distracted by the International Korean Festival.  So, it seemed only fitting that our last weekend we visited the Osaka Castle.

The Osaka Castle is one of the more famous castle's in Japan - it played a large role in the unification of Japan during the 16th century.  (Wikipedia)

We toured the inside of the castle, which was filled with artwork and models of the castle in the various periods in Japan history.  As we were leaving, we found the opportunity to dress up...

Final Weekend: Fireworks

The summer brings fireworks in Japan.  There are fireworks every weekend.  This past weekend, since we extended our stay about 5 days, we were able to go to the second largest display in Japan.  The fireworks can be seen from our apartment building.

However, we decided to make the 15 minute walk to the river where they are let off.  The girls had a wonderful time (they love fireworks).  And, the fireworks display was wonderful.  The fireworks manufactures showed off a little (haha) toward the middle of the show and blasted fireworks that were shaped as happy faces, perfect stars and a face of a kitty.  It was a great show.

We left about 10 minutes before it was over - to beat the crowds - and it was a good evening.

Restaurants and Hand Towels

In every single sit down restaurant your server brings you hand towel when you sit down.  In many restaurants your server may bring you a diaper wipe-type thing (except no smell, just wet throw-away cloth) wrapped individually in plastic to keep it damp.  It's disposable.

In nicer restaurants, you get warm, damp cloth hand towels.  One per person.

The purpose of these is for you to wipe/clean your hands before you eat.  It's actually fantastic.  Grace and I have figured out that if we share one then we get to put one in my purse for another time (and let me tell you mamas...it comes in handy every single day!  I'm guessing you can buy them, but I haven't seen them at the store.  I'll miss having them so handy.

Claw Machines

We thing it's interesting some of the things you can try to win in those "claw" machines here.

How have we eaten out, not speaking the language?

Presentation is everything (I think) in Japan.  Outside of many, many, many of the restaurant windows are plates of food showing you what is offered inside.  Apparently, plastic food is an industry here.  We were going to visit one of the manufacturing facilities that makes this food with our friends upstairs (and the girls were going to be able to each make their own plastic sundaes.), but it turned out they only had the tours/classes on the weekends - which didn't work out for us.

However, plated presentation reminds me of the things they judge on Master Chef.  Have you seen our post about waffles??? Beautiful :)

Anyway, here is a sampling of window shopping (photo taking) I have done through the summer.  And, sometimes we asked the waitress to come outside the restaurant and then we pointed to what we wanted in the window.  It works.  And, I mean LITERALLY this is how we have ordered sometimes.

Also, many of the restaurants have photos in their menus too.  In those restaurants, we don't ask the waitress to go outside with us to order - we just point to ourself and then to the picture.  Not kidding.

But, aren't these presentations beautiful???

Safety and Crime in Japan

8.8 MILLION people live in Osaka, Japan.  That's 7% of Japan's population and makes it the 3rd largest prefecture (kinda like a state) in Japan.  Osaka is also the third most expensive city to live for expats (i.e. foreigners) which was published in the paper a few weeks after our arrival.  Osaka is also a sister city to Chicago in the United States!

Speaking of Chicago, it's population is about 2.7 million.  The actual city of Cincinnati has just under 300,000.  Kind of a different place over here.

Now while you are trying to conceive 8.8 million people - just in one city.  Let's talk about crime.  Specifically, murder.  (only because I'm trying to be fair and compare apples to apples here and it's the only number that I can find quickly that ensures things are being added up and divided out equivalently.)

So, per 100,000 people...in Chicago...there are 15.6 homicides
And, per 100,000 people...in Cincinnati...there are 28.8 homicides (cough, cough)
Let's whisper this so we may not faint - or just completely not believe it.
In Osaka (in a city of 8.8 million)...there are .79 murders per 100,000 people.  And, that decimal placement is not a typo!  I meant to type seventy-nine hundredths of a person is murdered per 100,000 people.

That doesn't mean murder doesn't occur, it's just not the top story on the news each night because it doesn't happen every day.
*************

On a lighter note...
We wanted to show you photos of what Jim and I have decided are examples of the theft rate in Osaka.  No numbers, just pictures....

This is a photo of a drug store by the smaller of the two train stations near our apartment.  This is actually an entrance to a hallway of maybe a restaurant and some back doors to stores along the street near the station.  There is another separate entrance on the street (and I'm taking a picture of the street entrance to this hallway which is just about 8-10 feet from the street entrance to the store).  You can also enter this store about mid- way from this aisle...see what looks to be a blue line in the center of the photo.  That's about where the door is.

Notice anything?  No store clerks.  Pretty much never...and there is an exit right where I'm taking the photo from.  Oh an there is also not really many people walking in this hallway (to keep people honest) either.  We do often see one or two people grabbing and item out here, this just happens to be a time when there was not.  I don't like taking pictures of people who maybe don't want to be on our blog.  And, I don't want to look like a tourist (haha).

Here's another example.

These are contact lenses.  Sitting on the street outside a shop where you buy them.  And not sales clerk standing out there.  Jim and I debated that the boxes were empty...aren't they locked up behind the counter at home???  Anyway, I lost.  I checked and they are not empty boxes.  And, although I didn't check the price - I don't think I have found one thing here that I can say is cheaper than in the U.S.  I'm guessing prescription contacts would be more expensive too. 

Trust is awesome.

Laundry

I wanted to share with you that many apartments we looked at did include a washer, but not a dryer.  Some included a dryer, but not a washer.  Seriously.

But, our apartment has both a washer and a dryer.  Yay us!!!  (We also have a dishwasher - which is a super bonus!)

Anyway, walking to the store one day, I took these photos to share with you.  Hanging your laundry out to dry is common...normal.

Grocery Stores in Japan

I wanted to show you some of the differences you may find in the grocery stores in Japan versus many of the large grocery chains in the U.S.  As you can see there is much more of an open market atmosphere.  And you can just pick what you want, place it in a container and go.  When you check out the cashier gives you chop sticks, mustard/ketchup, etc. depending on what you have selected.

Notice the fish.  You can reach out and touch them.  Just take what you need...

In one of our first posts, I mentioned the grocery stores were full of individual portions.  People come here to grab lunch or dinner.  It's very common (and not McDonalds!).  Here is a sampling of the variety you can grab for your meal.



Mangos

Fruit is packaged like this in Japan.  Almost all fruit ~ Apples, white peaches and mangos - just to name a few.  A mango is pictured to the left.  One of our dear friends in the building gave us this mango.  It is a rather large fruit for Japanese fruit size.  To us, it's probably about normal.

But, fruit here is expensive.  White peaches are often 2 for 700 Yen ($9.00).  My fruit stand couple beats that by a mile which is only one reason we go there :)  But being expensive and delicate...they package it so that it is well cared for.

Now, I'm not sure I've mentioned this before but there is this drink that was in the vending machines here for about a month that we call "Mango Juice.:  It's a mildly carbonated beverage that is flavored like a mango.  Sarah loves it.  The first time she tried it, I promise you it was like a drug to her.  She could not get enough and she would not let the bottle go.  Then, it left the vending machine and everyone was sad for her.  Luckily though, our favorite grocery store (Life) carries it so she is not without until next week when we go home.

So, this may be part of the reason our friend gave us the mango...because she knows about the mango juice obsession that someone in our family has!

Oh and by the way...real mango fruit...Sarah says is quite good too!

Weekend 11: Shirahama Beach

For one of our last weekends we decided to take the girls back to the beach.  But, this time a beach with beautiful clear blue water...and one that was 3 hours away.

We got up and left the apartment at 6:30 a.m. (so we could make the 8 a.m. train that connected about 20 minutes away).  It was 6:45 a.m. when I looked at my watch and noticed that the air was so humid that when you rubbed your hands together they felt wet - at 6:45 a.m.!

We walked to Osaka City Station, rode to the Tennoji Station (by subway) and then bought tickets for the 2 1/2 hour train ride to Shirahama.  The picture of Grace to the left is how she waited for the train to arrive.  We knew Sarah was going to love riding the train for this long! 

After we arrived at the Shirahama train station we then got on a bus for a 10-15 minute ride to the beach (that's three modes of transportation Sarah has ridden on today!  She is so happy!)  Here we are on the bus:

Here are pictures of the beautiful (and very busy) beach:

While the beach WAS busy, we easily found a place to put our stuff down, spread out our blankets and really did not feel like we were right on top of the people next to us.

For days now Sarah has talked about how much she loved the floaties Daddy bought her so we didn't have to hold her in the water.

For some reason the girls made it a game to collect seaweed and put it in the sand castle bucket.  It was mostly Sarah on this mission, but they both took part in it.  For some reason I only got a picture of Grace with the seaweed.

And, of course, Grace made a friend.  And although they couldn't actually speak to one another, that doesn't mean they couldn't communicate and have fun together!

Somehow we left the beach without a family photo.  But, we did leave with a little sunburn and lots of great memories.



In the taxi

P.S.  Here is a funny story.  A couple of weeks ago the girls and I were talking about how Daddy takes a train and then a taxi to work every day.  (Now the funny-ness of the story is in how fast Sarah turned her neck around at that comment).  After she heard what I said, she snapped her neck around to me and said, "IIIII haven't ridden in a taxi."  It was a moment where she realized there was yet another mode of transportation...and she hadn't tried it out yet!!!  I told Jim the story and we had been laughing about it for a couple weeks.

So, on the way home from the beach, we were trying to figure out when the bus was coming we could take to get back to the train station - and also worried we may miss the train (the long one) and then would have to wait 2 hours for the next one, we saw a taxi.  Soooo, Sarah is now able to say she has also ridden in a taxi!

Little Scientists (at Kids Plaza)

The kids in Japan are (finally) out school here and boy, did that change Kids Plaza!  It was 10 times busier than usual..and we were never "almost the only ones there."  It was a completely different experience (and honestly, I'm not sure if I would have bought a membership pass had it been like that all summer).  But, because I had been there all summer I easily noticed they were staffed for it.  There were suddenly 2 staff members working in the "grocery store" where there was usually one.  Last week we had noticed about 15 extra tables set up where we usually eat lunch...and they were full this week!  We actually sat on a bench for lunch instead of at a table (and it was fine!).

So, we've never been to the "Craft Room" at Kids Plaza because it's on the floor that we go to to exit.  They call it a craft room, but I think it's more like science and learning.  Perfect!

First all the kids sat in a semi-circle for a lesson about colors and how when you mix them together you get other colors.  I was so proud of the girls - sitting there so intently listening to the "teacher" talk to them in Japanese.  As I sat and watched them, I realized (how lucky I was) how good they were being...watching and listening to this guy teach them and not be able to understand.  Although, the teacher was also demonstrating and Grace was able to answer a few questions even though they were asked in another language.

The lesson was on the color wheel (and I think that is what the lesson is all of the time).  They were to put a drop of yellow, blue and red in each of their little tubes.  Then add another drop of color to change it to green, orange and purple.  Here they are.

 

At the end, after all the kids helped clean up, the teachers then had all the kids sit around the table and spin some tops that had 2-3 colors on it to again show them that things change color.  This is visit six to Kids Plaza and we are blessed to have always found at least one new thing to do during our visit.

Grace assures me this device above is new.  I can't believe with where it was located that we could have missed it all summer.  But this is a little coloring screen in which you get to color in the pattern on an old (Aztec??) house.  This photo shows their teamwork so that Sarah could color all the little blocks!

Pennennenemu Harry Restaurant

Miyuki told us about this cute little restaurant she thought the girls may enjoy.  They did and we are so glad to have spent an afternoon at Pennennenumu Harry.

One of the even-more-special parts of this trip was that the restaurant had two little dogs and one was "Harry" from a book that Grace's Specials teachers read to her last year in Kindergarten.  So, except for the Japanese title and text..she recognized it the second we walked in the door - where it was on display with the dogs.

Grace had liked the book Mrs. Freking read to the class so much, she checked it out from the library for me to read to she and Sarah at home.  So, we all remembered the cute story about a dog named Harry...







Here is a photo of the girls with the book (in Japanese).  The girls are standing right in front of the dogs (below).  The black dog has a Japanese name and also had a book that he was named after too.  Unfortunately I can't spell or pronounce his name...but here they are.  "Harry" and his friend:


The golden brown dog is "Harry"



Next, we went upstairs to find a table.  You find many Japanese restaurants are multi-level for seating.  Here are the girls enjoying looking through the books, many of which we did recognize (just couldn't read)...

    

Grace was excited to see one of Jim's favorites
as a child..."Where the Wild Things Are"

 















As you can see, even at the table, there were plenty of books to select and choose from.  (behind Grace above)




"A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein





And then, the food arrived!  Grace wouldn't eat her "Harry" cookie because it was too cute (at least for a while) and the girls oohed and ahhed over the cute little cocoa powder paw prints that were on the plates!

Lemon cheesecake for the girls (above).

Tiramisu for me (below).  Sarah and I ended up trading...she wasn't too excited about the lemon part.

And if you order a meal...this is the presentation that is delivered to your table.  You may be able to see a little, but the bread is shaped and decorated to look like a little turtle!

And, you know octopus is common here.  We ARE on an island in the middle of the ocean...it's in the grocery stores, it's in many, many dishes at restaurants, it's placed on pizza and mixed in fried noodles.  But, please don't think that means that we are eating much of it!

However, we did think it fitting that they had an octopus slide in a park a block away that we stopped at for a few minutes on the way home.  I made this picture larger so you could try to see Sarah in it's mouth (or that's how the girls explained it)!

We are so glad Miyuki suggested that we visit this place.  What a special afternoon!