1st day in Osaka!

I'm back in Singapore last night from Osaka. Well, this was a very rushed trip cause I was actually only in Japan for 3 days if you minus off the morning I'm flying back to Singapore. It was so packed with activities, shopping, gala dinner, tour, etc. I had great fun though :)

The first day I reached, I was immediately fetched to a hot spring spa resort to relax. It was really an experience -- everyone was totally naked inside the hot spring!!! Of course the ladies & the men were separated, yet, it was still awkward in our conservative shy Singapore culture to be totally naked before the same gender... In Singapore, if someone was to go naked inside the changing room in a public swimming pool, everyone would already raised their eyebrows. So being the shy Singaporean, I wrapped up myself in a thankfully large towel before I hastily "unwrapped" myself in 1 second just before dipping into the hot spring pool. However, the Japanese are so used to this culture that they simply walked bare naked all the way from the dressing room to the pool. & we used to think the Japanese girls are the shy ones...

After that, I was driven to my hotel, and I have the whole room to myself in a 6 stars hotel!!! I had the highest floor too, with a room overlooking the Ogawa River. Looking at the view from my hotel room simply relaxes me.

I went to Shisaibashi shopping street in the night. The shops in Osaka closes very early though. Most of them closes around 8pm, a handful of them at 9pm, and after 9pm, all shops except the restaurants are closed. There are alot of people everywhere on the streets. Osakans are known to walk the fastest in the world. So I had a hectic time crossing the road, everyone just walks so fast!!

I'm very impressed with their subway too. They had carriages especially for women, so that during the peak hours, we won't feel being harassed by the bodily closeness of the males.

I had "long legs crab" (lots of them) for my dinner, and I hang around the streets after that. I didn't get any opportunity to shop though, because after I came out of the restaurant, all the shops were already closed. But after 10pm, I started noticing the youths (or rather punks) coming out in their groups and hanging around. They are so funky!!! Long coloured hairs, tattoos, pierced body earrings, loud dressings were a norm, so I guessed that's a street where they hang out. I felt like an odd one out there...