Sara Visits Osaka

October 12-13

After the long weekend in Tokyo, I was lucky enough to also be coming back to Osaka to family from Houston! My cousin Jonathan, his daughter and partner as well as parents were in Japan for a visit and happened to be in Osaka during the Monday holiday. So right after getting back from Tokyo, I scrambled my stuff together and headed to meet them at their hotel in Namba. I hadn't seen them since last Christmas and I wasn't sure if Sara, his 3-year-old daughter would remember me. When first meeting up with them, Sara was really hesitant. I think after she saw I was harmless and everyone else showed I was family, she really warmed up fast. Within ten minutes she was holding my hand and talking my head off!

Since they had a large breakfast, we waited on lunch and decided to go straight to Osaka Castle. It was really funny and cute because Sara kept talking about the castle as if it was a castle like in Disney movies. She would say things like, "Where is my castle?" and "Are there dragons?" It was a long walk to the castle from the station but everyone seemed to be doing well. As you know, I'm from Houston and Houstonians are not accustomed to walking, ever. We are a city that runs on cars and air conditioning so the beginning of the day seemed to be a lot for my aunt and uncle especially.

Living in Japan for a year and a half now, I had seen the castle a dozen times but never actually went into it. Since I was with tourists, they bought tickets to go up and check it out. Inside there are a couple floors that are similar to a museum set up, providing information on the castle and the surrounding areas. Then at the top you can go outside and get a really nice view of the city. The weather was cool but also cloudy with a light drizzle starting to fall. So after taking in the scenery a bit, we headed back down. Traveling with a child, basically all the choices in places to go starts to be focused on the child. So where did we go next? To Kaiyukan to see the big fish of course!

I had been to Kaiyukan already twice in this year alone but I wasn't going to argue with a free ticket to go! Being inside the aquarium also gave us some shelter from the weather and a bit of warmth since the temperature was beginning to drop. We spent a few hours there looking at the fish and other sea creatures. I was playing as the family photographer snapping pictures everywhere for them. I think its easy to forget to take photos because you are trying to enjoy the moment. That or you have a child you have to run after. So I was happy to take the photos. It had been so long I had held a nice camera anyhow so it was a good feeling.

That evening, we headed back to Namba to have dinner. My family wanted to meet Junya so he came out to join us for a meal of sushi. My family was really impressed with the size of the sushi pieces, and honestly so was me and Junya! They were huge! Sara had passed out at 7pm so was asleep all through out dinner. After our sushi meal, my aunt and uncle took Sara back to the hotel to sleep. Jonathan, Erica, Junya and I proceeded to go to a near by izakaya for some more food and drinks. It was nice just to be the four of us being able to talk about anything without having parent like figures around. At the izakaya, Jonathan also mentioned he wanted to try weird things so Junya ordered some unordinary dishes like chicken tail and cartilage. The chicken tail was actually pretty good but the cartilage I could pass on. We didn't stay out too late because Junya had work the next day and I was running off of four hours of sleep on a bean bag the night before. It was fine for me though because I took off work the following day to spend more time with them.

On Tuesday, it was a regular work day for everyone except for me! Like I said before, I had taken the day off and was planning to take my family to Nara Park. I know what you're thinking, I take everyone there. But honestly, the park is nice and filled with pretty, traditional things and you can feed and touch deer! So I figured it would be good again for Sara to see as well as my aunt and uncle to see traditional stuff if they wanted. If you have ever been to Nara Koen you know it is rather large. We didn't walk around the whole park and only saw a couple structures before everyone was showing tiredness. So in the late afternoon, four packs of deer crackers later, we hopped back on the train to head back to Osaka. Since it was still a little early, I took them to see the Umeda area. In Umeda there is a lot of shopping to do but it didn't seem like the adults had any real interest in that. So instead, we focused on Sara and finding a toy store for her. We went to Kiddy Land where Jonathan let her choose out one toy. She ended up picking a mini toy set of Doraemon. Her parents were surprised she didn't pick a baby doll like she usually did. Afterwards, we ate dinner near by at a humburg place. I would of loved to show them more places but just seeing how exhausted they seemed to be, I headed back to the hotel to let them rest.

It was really nice to see Houston in Osaka. I'm happy that my family could see how I'm doing here and to experience this world I get to see all the time now. Next, they would be heading off to Tokyo and were going to Disneyland! So after some chill time in the hotel, I got my hugs from everyone and kisses from Sara and was on my way. Until Christmas guys!!




xx
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