Takoyaki, an Osaka specialty or as the cook called it, Osaka “soul food”.

Time is money in Japan, so at this restaurant, you order from a vending machine…

…and out pops your dish. Well not really, but you do order from the machine. Come on Japan, I would’ve expected that from you.

Osaka Castle

A ferris wheel.

At the Osaka aquarium. They had two whale sharks.

The big guy was sitting there minding his own business when the other guy came and gave him a small tap. They both then stood up and spread their arms and stayed in this position forever.

No thanks woman. (I set this up on a timer…sad)

Dotonbori Street

Another specialty of Osaka is their okonomiyaki, which is a sort of pancake dish. My batter was filled with pork, shrimp, cuttlefish and various veggies, which was grilled in front of me. However, you can do it yourself if you wanted to. I just let the pro handle it.

It’s then topped with special sauce, mayo and bonito flakes.

I finished the night off strong with beer and waffles.

Thanks Japan for the good times.

MORE

Kobe!

The streets of Kobe.

The Maritime Museum. At a certain angle, it looked like a boat. Neat.

Ferris wheel

Story behind this is that this clock fell because of the earthquake, causing it to stop working at the exact time of the earthquake. They left it as it was and it’s now a memorial.

For those that have been to Japan, this should be a familiar sight. I walked into every one I came across trying to find that Black Thunder ice cream that Hanna freaking loves. Could not find it.

I was excited to see the deer and after a bit of walking, saw them right away just relaxing in the park. They have completely adjusted to the many tourists that come through, so they will walk right up to you especially if you have food. Some even learned to bow their heads asking for food. It was all interesting, but sad seeing these deer being toyed around with by some tourists. As least there’s harmony between the city residents and the deer.

This guy snatched the map out of my pocket to eat it. I thought he was going to spit it out after he realized it was just paper, but he kept going and just ate the whole thing. Thanks for that buddy.

“Sup”

The Todaiji Temple

There was a huge buddha inside.

A Nara barber

I found out there was a sake brewery in town so I went sake tasting. I found out it’s all about the quality of the rice. They also had this one sparkling sake, which was really good.

Sake ice cream!

In terms of politeness, I’ve never had so many people say “excuse me” and “sorry” in such a short amount of time. This place was so polite that I was starting to get nervous in the way I presented myself because I didn’t want to offend anyone. I caught myself bowing on multiple occasions, but when in Rome…

Besides that, Tokyo is definitely a cool city, and their excellent metro system made it super easy for me to get around.

Saw a few of these in the city. Great restaurant I heard.

I went to a popular donkatsu place, Tonti, and you can watch them make it in these huge vats. There were also a lot of grandpa’s working at the place, and it made it that much better.

At the Tsukiji fish market, you can head over there around 5 in the morning to see the Tuna auction, but it was too early for me. I still checked it out because you can eat really really really fresh sushi for breakfast, and check out the market. Those are some big crabs.

I couldn’t believe that there was a place that just sold tamago. Tamago’s the last thing I want to spend money on when I eat sushi, BUT, they were giving out samples and it was not the tamago I was used to in the states. This tamago was dang delicious. The store had purpose.

Fresh sushi from the fish market.

I also made a visit to the Studio Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki’s studio, and is like the Disney of Japan. The place was interesting, but took some work in actually getting tickets. I knew you had to buy tickets in advance, but since they didn’t have a place for me in China, I had to ask my dad to buy them for me in the States then mail them over to Beijing to take with me to Japan. Thanks pops. If you’re a Miyazaki fan, you should recognize this guy. I didn’t because I have only seen about four of his films.

Harajuku (there’s a girl looking at me in the picture). I wish I saw more cosplay people.

They put a whole cheesecake in this crepe. Of course I ate it, and it was amazing.

At the crazy intersection they always show on TV when talking about Tokyo. It’s in Shibuya where they had a store called the Loft that sold everything from travel gear to art supplies. It was amazing, and I picked up some awesome ear cleaners.

Oh, and the song is great too.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3W8dm5JxFc">VIDEO</a>

Well, I just saw an article from Engadget showing a robot that mimics a little boy. I’m kind of glad there wasn’t a video to go along with this one since the picture alone just freaks me out. From the article, it says:

A bald, child-like creature dangles its legs from a chair as its shoulders rise and fall with rythmic breathing and its black eyes follow movements across the room.

It’s not human — but it is paying attention.

Haha, I like that last part…”but it is paying attention”. Sounds like a tagline from some movie trailer. Anyway, here’s the picture of the demonchild.

Going along with the robots, this guy gives an interesting talk about robots in warfare, and how it relates with human society. It’s a TED talk.

<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/504">VIDEO</a>