*End of January Osaka Trip with Josh*

The very end of January brought a wonderful trip to Osaka :)

I asked Josh of all the cities he wanted to travel to right away, which city would it be. He said Osaka. I said okay, let's go! So not much planning and a little time later we found ourselves on a shinkansen headed to Osaka! :D We enjoyed pizza and a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne!

We arrived late Friday night and checked into the New Otani Hotel over looking Osaka Castle after a bit of an adventure:) We arrived at Shin-Osaka station and needed to get to Osaka station. I asked a lady if the train we were going to get on was headed to Osaka station. She said yes. I knew it was only a four minute ride and when more than four minutes had past, I was a bit concerned! We were actually headed on a high speed train to KYOTO! WHAT!? Why?! So, 30 minutes later and two sleepy people later, we arrived in Kyoto. We had to wait about 25 minutes for the next train back. We decided to celebrate the mistake with grapefruit Chu-hi. The train came and we were on our way back to Osaka.

WE FINALLY made it to the hotel about 1AM via taxi. It makes for a funny story. Needless to say we slept in a bit on Saturday morning. We had a wonderful American Breakfast in the room and then got ready for the day! We went out to one of the main districts of Osaka. We walked and lazed around all day just enjoying the sun and our awesome lunch! Everywhere we went was closed for lunch except for this little, hidden hole in the wall nabe type restaurant. We sat for a really long time enjoying nabe (japanese soup/stew), various meats, vegetables, rice, and other unidentifiable goodies! We walked around a bit more and then went to another cafe for chocolate milkshakes! They were delicious! We took the train back and walked to our hotel, by this point we were a bit tired and wanted a nap before we went to the observation deck for dinner.

The view of Osaka castle at night is spectacular. Check out the pictures below! We got ready and took a taxi over to the observation deck. We had reservations pretty late that over looked Osaka. Osaka is a much slower paced city, lots to do, very sweet people, fantastic food, great walking, and just a very enjoyable city!

We took a taxi to the observation deck and took the elevator to the top floor which is about 38 or 39 stories up, I think. We walked around the top deck inside, not out, and went and enjoyed a several course meal at Stardust cafe. We had bread, salad, vegetables, steak, dessert, and wine :) It was a lovely evening with great conversation and beautiful views! We went back to the hotel and drank champagne at the Castle Bar. It was a really neat bar!

On Sunday, we had a really relaxing brunch in the hotel over looking Osaka castle and the surrounding areas. It was a cool and misty morning which was perfect to curling up in a sweater and jeans and enjoying the gourmet brunch! After brunch we slowly walked over to the castle in the rain. There was a marathon going on in which I thought these people were insane because it had started to rain. We walked up to the castle, bought tickets, and walked around the 8 floors of the castle. After the castle, we sauntered back to the hotel for afternoon coffee and cake. We sat and talked for a long time before casually going to the train station to catch the shinkasen back to Tokyo!

It was a wonderful weekend spent with Josh in a fantastic city! As always, I continue to love Japan!!

Check out photos here ----> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037018&id=54500082&l=d667b03fb4