Sunday - Day 3

Jet lag isn't great, so I spent the first part of Sunday monged out in Tom's apartment while he went to work. The apartment is only a short walk to the station and has a few basic supermarkets and dry cleaners nearby - it also has porn vending machines which sell slutty dvds for 1000 yen (£5) and they're covered by curtains so you have a bit of privacy, which isn't great as you just look like more of a pervert when you walk in and out. There are drinks vending machines on almost every corner it seems and you can get a 500ml can of coke for 100 yen (50p) and beer in quite a few of them. It sounds stupid coming to a place like Japan and talking to you about vending machines, but as soon as you step into the street you need a drink in this heat so the machines are a god send. The locals find it curious that I'm wearing shorts and sunglasses, but they're a necessity for such a humid place and even then I'm too hot!

Sunday afternoon we met up with one of Tom's japanese friends and went to Osaka Jo which is the major tourist attraction in the city. It's a castle which dates back to 1583 but was fully restored 11 years ago after it was damaged by fire in the 19th century and then bombed during WWII in 1945. It's set in a large part and has a large working moat and grand entrance doors. Many of the guide books tell you that it's the only place worth visiting in Osaka, which is a harsh thing to say, but I see their point if they are talking about someone well versed in Japan and it's culture. It's all new to me though so pretty rad. Outside the castle building itself we found a guy showing off his iguanas and letting people stroke them - but I thought better of it. We also watched this crazy street entertainer juggle with fire and then finally eat it and everyone lapped it up. The coolest thing by far about the castle park was that on a Sunday between mid day and five they have live bands playing for free down this one street and on the whole they were pretty good. There were five stages and several bands would be playing at once so you can wander down and just carry on walking if you didn't dig what they were doing. If they had something like that back home I'd be a regular visitor and we found a good ska punk band called Squeeze!! who were well worth watching. It did draw a few crazy old guys who'd be dancing like nutters though but they just added to the entertainment!