Kansai Part 1

I have too many pictures from my trip to visit Sean, so I'll have to do this in three parts; one for each day I was in the Kansai region.

The first day with Sean was in Osaka, and I must admit I love the place. People in Osaka are much more friendly and talkative than in Sendai or the northern region. I'd love to move there if I can in the future (^_^). We met up at a station on the monorail line close to Osaka airport and then we went to Osaka castle, in the centre of the city. We enjoyed the great view of the city, watched a street performer do some magic tricks (the first one I've seen in Japan) and toured the museum which is the remade castle keep. In the evening we met two of Seans's co-workers, Mari and Sarah (and her boyfriend) and we had some Thai food. We also saw the famous bridge in Osaka where there is the "Gulico Man". Apparently, a few years ago when Osaka's baseball team won the league championship, the city went nuts and people started diving off the bridge into the river (some people might have died too, I'm not quite sure), hence the safety barricades that you can see in the picture.

I was pretty tired by 10pm though because I'd had 3 hours of sleep the night before due to a birthday party that I decided to go to and I had to get up early to catch my plane at Sendai airport. Sean was also under the weather with a cold, so we headed to his place in Hirakata (about 25 minutes east of Osaka by train) and I was out like a light 5 minutes after lying down on his spare futon. I mention this becuse it usually takes me between 30 and 90 minutes every night to fall asleep, so I was unbelievably tired. The next day was Kyoto, which I'll write about later. Bye for now!!