Kyoto Excursion Part the Third

We figured we could wake up at the usual time and then head to Osaka and meet Mel at the aquarium. The usual wake up time is 10am, which is pretty much the earliest time that exists in the world. Anyone who claims to wake up earlier than that is a liar.

So those liars managed to be awake and ready and heading to the aquarium all in time to get there by 11. Which sort of ruined our half of the plan, so we took our time getting lunch and browsing game stores and such before heading to Osaka. Stopped by my hostel to drop my crap off, and started heading to inner Osaka before I got an e-mail from Mel,where we promptly made plans to meet up at Osaka station and then get ice creams.

It was a good plan. I like ice cream.

So that lasted for all of between 30 and 40 minutes. A short reunion, but I am not exactly lacking in exposure to Mel back in the states, so I didn't mind too badly.

Jason and I wandered around aimlessly for a few more hours, a good chunk of which was trying to find a garbage can. Japan has a severe lack of them. Tons of bottle disposals, but nothing for actual trash.

We also wound up playing on the moving walkways in the train station. Or rather, I played on them, and Jason followed at a distance shaking his head. He afterward commented on how I seem to view the world completely and entirely from a unique perspective from everybody else in the world. Not entirely sure it was meant as one, but I took it as a compliment, so it's a compliment. Then he put his finger on his nose and nodded his head and flew back up the chimney.

Or he got on a train and headed back to Kyoto.

Afterward I started wandering around looking for a movie theater. I found one, but didn't care to see anything they were showing, so moved on. Then I found a random street concert. I'm guessing these are common, and it had a decent crowd, but most people only stayed for one or two songs before moving along. I stayed for the majority of the set and bought their entire discography. It was only ￥２０００, so that really wasn't that bad. The band is called Fabled Number, which I have no idea what it means. Probably a number that nobody can count up to, and since everyone always counts up to 10 I'm guessing that it would be 11. Possibly 12, but that seems more mythical than fabled. Anywho, their website is over at fablednumber.net if you feel a need to check them out.

The next day was spent by my lonesome. I played some arcade games and got some food. Then after I had already eaten some Yoshinoya, I weeped at the Wendy's I came across. I couldn't ignore it, but I wasn't hungry anymore. So I got a frosty. Delicious, wonderful, chocolate frosty. It tasted exactly how it does in America, and for five in a half minutes I was home again.

I bothered to sit through another movie, because I don't get to do that often and it's something I enjoy, I don't need you judging me! Unfortunately I sat through Blood: The Last Vampire. It wasn't too bad, really, but the special effects were crap, or at least the cgi was. It was about mid 90's quality cgi, back when most people avoided using it in favor if the much more realistic animatronics. Really, they should start thinking that way again, cause animatronics are awesome.

I got panicky and headed for the ferry terminal immediately after the film. I figured it took me about 2 hours to get there last time, so I should do it again this time. Hey, turns out that now that I know how to navigate train system properly, and my foot was only bleeding a little this time, and I had less crap to carry... well I wound up with something like an hour left to kill. That was... that was pretty boring. I did find a weird shop or something with pretty much every action figure and prop ever created lodged inside of it (a few pics are in the photobucket). They had scale model Jurassic Park dinosaurs, Darth Vader masks, every Lupin III toy.... It was like my neighbor's old store but on a bigger scale.

Oh right, my neighbor used to own a collectible toy store. You... you probably wouldn't know that. I need to remember to point these things out.

Anyways, took the ferry ride back, which was pretty nice, but I didn't eat from the cafeteria this time. They had pretty much only a fish selection, and I was not in the mood for fish. I ended up getting a dumpling and nikuman set from the hot food machine and calling it quits after that.

Got back to Beppu at about 7 am, and had breakfast at McDonald's. I love hash browns. So, so much. If McDonald's started servind a hash brown value meal, where it was a double hash brown sandwich (made up of two hash browns in between two other hash browns) with a side of the BK mini hash browns, I would love it. Also, a glass of milk.

Ended up skipping the first class of the day so that I could do the homework I neglected for Japanese, and the rest as they say is history.

Now we're caught up! Oh wait, except I need to take tomorrow to recap everything that I neglected to talk about writing this.

Ha! Nice to have a buffer.