Sunday in Osaka!
Sunday in Osaka!
Sunday morning we went with Suzuki-san to Kaiyukan Aquarium in Osaka, one of the largest aquariums in the world, where we saw a whale shark!
October 19, 2008
After the aquarium, we stopped for lunch and ate:
Takoyaki (TA-KO-YAH-KEY): “Tako” means octopus; “yaki” means fried:
We also enjoyed Okonomiyaki (OH-KONO-ME-YAKI), a pan-fried “pancake” of batter and cabbage with various toppings of your choice: “Okonomi” means “to your liking.” Us being gaikokujin (foreigners!) we enjoyed it with pork; our teacher added smoked bonito fish shavings to the top.
On Sunday afternoon, we were invited to see Suzuki-san’s brothers musical group play at an international festival. They covered several Beatles songs (the fourth Beatle was out of town that day) and were quite good, with the audience clapping along and cheering for an encore aftewards!
After the show, Suzuki-san’s brother, Michael Goro Matsuura, took us out for an evening in Osaka. We went to the Dotonbori Riverwalk area with its riverwalk and many shops and restaurants, and he took us to Dotonbori Gokuraku Shoten-gai -- “Paradise Shopping Area” -- a food theme park that reproduces the old style downtown area of Osaka, with musicals and other entertainment in “Osaka-ben,” or Osakan dialect.
After the show, Matsuura-san took us out for dinner at an izakaya (Japanese drinking bar with various dishes):
Because of the heat, the Bonito fish shavings contort: