Osaka & Hiroshima

It's been a while since my last post. We arrived at Fukuoka yesterday and have been to Hiroshima before that. But there are still some things I didn't write about Osaka.

On our last day in Osaka we went to the Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda. You don't have to pay any fees for entering. In the museum you will learn about the invention of the first Instant Ramen. This happened in Ikeda, so that's why the museum is located there. In the museum they have an Instant Ramen Tunnel. It displays all the Instant Ramen that where sold, starting with the first Chicken Ramen, invented in Ikeda, to the Instant Ramen on sale these days.
You can also design your own Instant Ramen for 300Yen (approximately 3€), which we did. First you have to start by washing your hands, then you can draw on your cup and in the end it gets filled with the ingredients you choose and will then be wrapped.
We made:

• Soup: Tomato Chili; Ingredients: Garlic, crab meat, shrimps, egg
• Soup: Cup Ramen; Ingredients: Kimchi (2x), meat, garlic

After that we bought some Instant Ramen at a vending machine and ate them right away.
We ate our own Instant Ramen on our last day in Hiroshima. You can only store them for one month and it was a hassle to carry them around. They were really really good <3

After the Instant Ramen Museum we went to see the Aquarium in Osaka - Kaiyukan. They at a special One Piece Illumination near the Aquarium, but by the time we got there all the tickets where sold out. So we just went to the temporarily opened One Piece Shop, but didn't find any good merchandise.
The Aquarium in Osaka is really beautiful. Other than the fish you can see otters and birds for example. They have a lot of times when you can watch the animals being fed. The main attraction is a big reservoir containing 11000 tons of water. You walk from the very top of the reservoir down to the bottom in a spiral. Smaller aquariums are placed around it. It's really beautiful. But like always in a aquarium I had the feeling that some animals didn't have the space they really need.

After Osaka we went to Hiroshima. We really like this city, because of their good food ('-'*)
While we were there we had some delicious Hiroshima Style Okonomiyaki and Tsukemen (dip noodles). Unfortunately our favorite sushi restaurant closed, because the house it was in was torn down. Throughout the city were a lot of building sites. I think they should renew their sidewalks. It was really exhausting to get our suitcases to the hostel x_X
Because of this we took a taxi back to the station once we left the city. It was our first taxi ride in Japan. The driving on the left was a bit confusing for us. But it was really really convenient.
In Hiroshima we went to the Shukkeien Garden. It's a lovely Japanese garden, which served as a refuge for the people after the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima during the Second World War. We saw the first cherry blossoms and plum blossoms there <333
The rest of the day we strolled around Downtown and took a river cruise. The next they we left for Fukuoka. I will write about that in my next post.

Possible ingredients for your own Instant Ramen

After the design is finished put the noodles in the upside down cup

Our designs

The ingredients

Osaka's aquarium

Designing the Instant Cup Ramen

Special One Piece shop

Big big fish

Otters

Coral reef

Squids

Sardines

Crabs

Shukkeien Garden in Hiroshima

Kois at Shukkeien Garden

Cherry blossom <3

Rainbow bridge Shukkeien Garden

I think these are plum blossoms

Weired way of securing these plants during winter

Matcha and Wagashi

Going to Osaka...

We spent our last day (Sunday) in Akihabara, Tokyos electronic town. I can only recommend this spot for people who are into video games, anime, etc.
There isn't a store I want to talk about. If you are there you just have to roam through the streets and will surely find something amazing. And don't be shy to explore different floors of the buildings.
When we were there on Sunday, the road was closed, so people could walk all over the place. This is really great. Like this you can see all the ads, that are on the buildings.
We also had a strange encounter there. Not only we, but most of the Japanese as well. We saw a small group of middle aged Japanese men on the street and all of them were cross dressing (they were dressed as women). They were cosplaying there favourite characters. One was dressed as a maid, another one wore a really really short miniskirt... Not something you get to see in Germany.

On the next day we left our ryokan and went to Tokyo Station to take the Shinkansen to Osaka. We have a JR Pass, so it's free for us to go by the Shinkansen (not all). For the ride to Osaka we also reserved some seats in the front of a wagon. We have three big suitcases with us and you never know where to put them if you don't have a seat in the front or at the back, because only there is enough space for big luggage.
It took us three hours to reach the Shinkansen station Shin-Osaka and another hour to find hour hostel (JHoppers Osaka). We have a "big", clean room with a western bed. No more sleeping on the floor. ^-^
Because we are staying at a hostel, we have to share the toilets and showers with everyone. The only disadvantage here is, that the hostel has thin walls. Furthermore, we have a ventilation grid in our door. So we can hear everything that happens on the floor.

Today was our first day in Osaka. We went to Namba. This is in the south of Osaka. We went to the American district, but we were too early. Most of the shops open after 11 o'clock. We were there around 10am. The Mandarake opens at 12pm :(
Still, I wasn't really interested in the shops there. Most of them were selling hip hop clothes.

So we went on to Namba Station. We went to the shop "Don Quijote". It's like "Donki" in Akihabara. They sell everything there! From food, to cleaning stuff, to sex toys, to jewelery.
After that we went to Dotonbori and looked at the Glico-man and the hosts for a while. For those of you who don't know: You can find many many host cafés in the Dotonbori area. In a host café young, beautiful man cater to women. Most of the time the woman ends up paying for all the drinks ;)
The hosts stand in the streets and try to pursuade women to come to their cafés and have a good time.

After that we went to the Kuromon Market. It's near Nipponbashi Station. You can go there for cheap, local eating places. We had some homemade udon (thick noodles) there and takoyaki (octopus balls). We also bought some delicious tsukemono (pickled vegetables) and Japanese sweets like ichigo daifuku.

Then we went down Sakai-suji Ave. The area's name is DenDen Town. It's like a small Akiba. At the end of DenDen Town, there's the Shinsekai area. We went to see the Tsutenkaku Tower there. Unfortunately, most of the shops were closed in this area.

Today was the first day we met some Germans. First was a girl from Cologne. She is here on holidays with her family. We also met a Japanese woman, who had been living in Vienna and Pfortzheim for 20 years. Her German was still very good.

For dinner we had Ramen (noodle soup), fried rice and Gyoza (meat dumplings) in a small Chinese restaurant near our hostel. It was so small, it was like we were sitting inside of the old couple's living room. They were really friendly and the food was very very good.