Addis’ Trip to Japan: Osaka, Day 2

Today was a do whatever we wanted in Osaka before we had one last dinner with the group (cue sad violin music). I don’t think I mentioned this before but my best friend and I went with a tour group where everyone was aged 19 to 29. There were thirty of us total, which made it a lot of fun as someone always wanted to do the same things as someone else.

Instead of eating my way through the “Kitchen of Japan”, I tried to take as many pictures of the display foods as I was able. I held out on adventurous eating, but one of the guys in the group tried fresh sparrow on a stick.

I ended up getting distracted by everything so only got a few.

We spent about 2 hours at the Kaiyukan Aquarium, and saw why it’s considered one of the top aquariums in the world. There are over 30,000 animals living in the various exhibits, but no trip to this aquarium would be complete without stopping by the 4-story tank that houses Yuna the whale shark.

I didn’t get very many pictures of the exhibits as I was too busy video chatting my sister through the entire 2 hours.

We then wandered down Dotonbori, the road cutting directly through the city. This place is teeming with bars, restaurants, shops, and entertainment. Think neon signs, bright lights, and octo-pops (a well-known street food that is exactly what it sounds like, aka takoyaki).

We stopped back at the hotel for a quick nap before we shared some last laughs at our farewell dinner with the group.

By morning, the thirty of us new freinds will be split up to go back to our lives back home, but this will be a trip none of us will forget.

Thank you for reading with me for these last two weeks. I hope I showed some insight into Japan and helped some of you want to visit someday in the future.

I’ll be posting an overview of my entire trip, stating the pros and cons of everything I saw. If you don’t read it, then farewell. If you do read it, see you in a little while.

Addis