Day 6

Today is the day I’ve been looking forward to the most and I have to say it lived up to all expectations 

After breakfast (yes more pastries and hot chocolate) we took the tube to Osaka Castle

We didn’t see any cherry blossom but we did see the start of plum blossom so that almost counts

We also saw an alien ship on a pole but that’s by the by 



Osaka Castle was magnificent from the outside 






Once tickets for the inside were bought Joss waved her walking stick at the attendant and she took us up to the 8th floor in the lift instead of the usual 5th floor - result!!

From the 8th there were some lovely views






Then we went down the floors seeing artefacts/depictions etc about its history





However the best thing was a statue but it was on a floor we weren’t allowed to take pictures on so here’s an artist’s impression 



I think we can all agree how impressive the statue looks

Leaving the castle the same attendant ran over to us to insist we took what we now call Joss’ lift, to take us to the outside ground floor




We dropped our stuff off back at the hotel and then caught the train to Namba for one of the 6 major sumo tournaments 

It was everything I hoped for




Actually it was better as I could drink cans of lager as I watched it

Kieren was less impressed so we let him watch YouTube for the last bit and fully made it up to him by having a Japanese McDonald’s 

I still have no idea why he chose to write the holiday events in the world’s smallest notebook



My teriyaki chicken burger was especially nice

We then dropped Hattie and Kieren off at the hotel and googled a local bar

When we found it it was in the basement of a department store with lots of other bars and restaurants 

Are all good places in basements ?

We actually preferred the look of the other bars but they were rammed so eventually found ours and it turned out to be a British themed bar !!!





Neither of us wanted to go in there in Japan but we had no choice and 3 pints later we did warm to it

We did have some feedback however to make it more authentic 

1 Grown men shouldn’t be ordering a milkshake in a pub after work

2 Bar snacks aren’t served in beer glasses

3 No UK bar has the glasses on show so you can ask what size drink you want and 

4 the most important one, no set of toilets should be fully functioning and there should at least be the opportunity to walk through urine before realising the hand dryer has been ripped off the wall

It’s been a bloody great day!!!

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