Happy New Year!

明けましておめでとうございます！

... Where to start? Dave arrived here on Dec 17th, and since then we've been kept very busy, visiting lots of different places and penguins. So far we've explored Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo and Nara, and plan on visiting Kobe in the next few days. So I think I'll do this in parts just now.

~OSAKA~

Our first major outing was our trip to Osaka, on the 20th. We stayed in a small hotel with Japanese-style rooms, right in the centre of Umeda, Osaka.

After we wandered for a bit round the shops, we ended up at the Osaka Pokemon Centre, which was a bit scary. However, the penguin Pokemon was cute.



We also bumped into an old friend...



We spent Thursday night in Umeda, having a nice walk about, as everything was open late. We also had a very posh, very tiny, very delicious meal.





And the whale was in full view...



In the morning, we headed to the Nanba area, where we bumped into another friend.



We then headed to a nice area called "Nanba Parks", a nice shopping/restaurant complex on a hill with gardens and a nice view of the city.







We ate Hawaiian for lunch, then eventually headed back to Kyoto in the evening after a day of much exploring and shopping fun.

Next update: coming soon.