I woke up to an alarm at 7:00 we were told that we were going to wake up at around 4 in the morning because of jet lag but I slept through the whole night. The hotel rooms were very small 8 square feet maximum. The shower took up half of the bathroom and had a hand held shower head. It was interesting to see how the shower head and sink faucet were directly connected. We went down stairs at half past seven and were greeted by the hotel staff who were putting out more food in the buffet. There was Japanese rolled omelette, yellow tail fish, strange salads a huge rice cooker filled with Japanese rice, takoyaki, yogurt and pastry filled with sweet bean past. It was delicious! Some of us joined me Carlson in front of the hotel to take a look around the neon or hood where we were staying, I was amaizing, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and the air was nice and cool, it was interesting to see how much green there was here, every open space had a garden in one form or another. We met our guides in front of the hotel and set off to Osaka castle. We were taking the trains to get there and I was once again impressed by people’s willingness to cram themselves in to small spaces.

After we left the castle we got back on the trains and went to a huge shopping centre with numerous twists, turns and branches and were allowed to wander around and go shopping for two hours. After around an hour of wandering Tia and I decided to take a chance and head into a small pancake cafe on the second floor of the shopping area, it was quiet and comfortable and the decor was western even if none of the staff spoke English as far as we could tell. The next stop was a building in which there was an area made up to look like edit period Osaka, there you could rent kimonos and wander around the immersive sets. Unfortunately they were sold out so we could not try it. The environment went through changes like clear and sunny to thunder storms, festival nights with fireworks and sunset and night. At 3 o’clock we arrived at an underground mall and were given an hour of free time. Half way through, me and Tia met up with a bunch of other girls on the steps leading above ground we were all very tired and were approaching that point at which all reason is lost and we just give up on trying to be rational. For dinner we went to restaurant that specializes in takoyaki and we got to make it ourselves. Afterwards sense I asked if we wanted to have more free time or go back to the hotel for bed and the vote was unanimous, bed time. Carlson sensei told us to come down at 9:00 to talk to us but most of us, including Tia and myself fell asleep much earlier than that.