Japan Day Nine : Osaka Castle....

Oh holeeee Jeeeeeeeeeebus. We have got to stop doing that.

We dragged ourselves out at about 3pm and jumped on a train to see the Osaka Castle. It is right in the middle of the city, so it was just a few stops away. As we walked from the train station to the castle, there was a bunch of stuff happenning on the pedestrian walkway.

Firstly there was some lion dancers. A little girl went up to them and the lion (or dragon or whatever it is supposed to be) pretended to eat her head. Her little sister (i think) was freaking out and going absolutely nuts. Her Dad wouldn't let go of her hand, so she was cowering behind him and screaming as the dragon came towards her. It was really kinda mean, but utterly hilarious.

We then passed what seemed to be a battle of the bands type thing. There were about 4 stages, all side by side with two bands going at once, belting out their j-pop and causing a wall of noise. There were street vendors set up everywhere and quite a fun atmosphere around. Osaka reminds me a lot of Melbourne.

The Osaka Castle is very pretty and really impressive. It's behind two moats and very high walls. It sits much higher than the land around it, so it looks over Osaka city. It and the Golden Temple are probably the most impressive historical stuff I have done in Japan.

After we'd finished looking through the castle, which is a museum of Japanese and Osakan history on the inside. We headed back to the hotel, and discussed whether we were going to go out again tonight. In the end, we were both shattered, but decided to just go out for a few drinks, and be back reasonably early. We agreed that we would go to bars, but would not be going to any clubs.

We got to Zerro in Shinsaibashi at around 10pm. We were sitting next to a completely maggoted Canadian couple who were consistently sloppily making out with each other and making smacky smacky noises while doing so. I was nearly ready to leave and call it a night, but Woo decided we needed tequila shots. After we bombed them and another beer, the Canadians had gone, but we decided to go back to Cinquecento, where we had been the night before. We stayed there for a few drinks (including a Jagerbomb, which was Woo's idea also) and were beginning to push a little towards drunk.

When we left Cinquecento we really should have headed home, however we decided we would go to Sam and Daves, which is a club. I know this goes aganst a decision we had made only 3 hours earlier, but hey, thats just how we roll. Sam and Daves is apparently pretty rocking on a sunday night. We walked past some other club, and Woo decided we should try it out. It was 1000yen entry but you got a free drink. We went down into the basement where the club was and it was completely dead. We decided we would get our free drink, bomb it in one shot, then walk out. We figured this would be appropiately rude enough to let them know how unhappy we were with being charged 1000yen to enter an empty club. We bombed the drinks and left. Woo had ordered a Pina Colada, so he got to bomb that, while I simply had a bourbon and coke. We laughed ourselves silly as we drunkenly made our way to sam and daves.

It was 2000yen entry but you got two free drinks. We walked in and it had maybe thirty people inside. We got our free drinks and kept drinking. It had started to fill up a little and we started talking to (and buying drinks for) some girls at the bar. By this stage we were both completely leathered, so I dont remember their names. I do remember both me and woo dropping our drinks at some point, and not long after that I think the girls decided that two completely maggot gaijin are probably a bit too much effort. We decided to leave and got back to the hotel at around 3am.

If I could do anything other than just pass out, I'm sure I would have wondered how that night had just happened. We had just had a five day bender through three different Japanese cities.