Japan Trip - Dec 21 - "Old Osaka, Sushi, and Mega Tamago"

We woke up at the ryokan at about 8am and watched some cartoons on the tv. Mariko went to the combini (convenience store) to pick up some food for us to eat before heading out. She got some onigiri, a hotdog sandwich thing, some other small sandwiches and coffee, tea, and juice. Even the convenience store food was great! One thing about Japan, the food is the best!

Next we made the short walk over to Mariko's dad's place and met him and his mother. We spent some time there munching on snacks and talking to Mariko's grandma, and then went out, not sure where we were going, but just following Mariko's dad. We ended up at the Osaka Municipal Housing Museum, which was on the 8th floor of the Municipal Housing building. The museum has a recreation of old Osaka circa 1860. It is pretty awesome. The lighting changes every several minutes to simulate all the different times of day. There were even sound effects of birds. It was amazing. Bay and I checked out the sento (public bath house) and he got to open up one of the lockers with an old key. Koa had fun taking photos with Mariko's camera and running around the town. I really enjoyed walking inside the buildings to see how life was like in the old times. Besides the town, there were models showing the city of Osaka in the early 20th century. These models were so incredibly detailed! There were a few that even moved, and it was so well-done and stylish, with 2D cutouts of people walking on the street, and then other overlays that showed how the city changed over the years. I really recommend visiting this museum if you are ever in Osaka!

After exploring for a couple hours, we were pretty hungry, so we walked down the street to find a place to eat. We quickly found a kaiten-sushi place. Kaiten-sushi is a sushi restaurant where you sit at a counter, and plates of sushi move past you on a conveyor belt. You just grab the plates of sushi that you want, and after you are done with your meal, the wait staff counts up the number of plates and tallies up the bill. Bay loves sushi, and ate so much. I too ate a ton, and drank a bunch of green tea as well. I don't know how many plates we ended up with, but it must have been around 20 or more.

Mariko's dad said goodbye to us after lunch, and we headed back to the subway and headed for home. Along the way, I made Mariko stop at the McDonald's so I could try the Mega Tamago Burger, which I see advertised every day. Mariko was unimpressed with the burger, but I thought it was pretty good! Especially with...