visit

After waiting about 30 minutes for passengers to come through Customs and Immigration, we knew the next group would include Todd and Priscila because there were quite a few white people.  The only flight coming in from anywhere outside Asia was from Honolulu.

They flew from Orlando to LAX, then to Beijing, finally to KIX.  Excellent!  We immediately took at selfie like any good tourists!  It was fun to see some of the families hugging each other at the airport, since there is so little hugging here.

We took the Limited Express train back to Namba.  Since it stops a few extra times, the train costs 500 yen less.  We didn’t care about the extra stops, we were eager to hear about their trip!  I remembered that when I got here Katie had only told me what I needed to know–I was already on overload.  I vowed to do that with Todd & Priscila and not try to show them everything all at once in my excitement to see them.

As soon as we got to the apartment Todd noticed that everything was smaller and shorter here 🙂  

Priscila said the kitchen felt like it was her size.  Katie and I were excited because she wanted to organize the kitchen! 

They had been up since Saturday morning, Florida time, with intermittent sleep on the planes.  That was like days ago!  By the time we got settled in, they were exhausted and it was pouring rain; it was nearly 6 p.m. anyway so off to sleep with dreams of plans for fun soon!

Day 2 of Todd & Priscila’s visit started with watching Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and eating pasta 🙂  Todd is expert at finding live streams.  I have really missed watching live sports!  I didn’t think we would be able to watch it–I have had no such luck and in fact I watched the Kentucky Derby with my sister’s family over WhatsApp. 

Soon we were out the door and in Shinsaibashi, of course.  We are so close to the river and it’s really the highlight of all things Osaka.  We wandered through the markets and stores.  It was raining lightly all day, but we had our handy umbrellas and it was warm out, so no problem.  It was not nearly as crowded as it had been for Golden Week, like only 10% of the people on this rainy afternoon.  It made it much easier to look around.  It also made it easier to pose at Running Man with the others who were posing on the bridge, too! 

Ordinarily you’d be just trying to make sure you didn’t lose your friends in the mob.  Katie said it was the emptiest she had ever seen the area.  By the way, Katie said the Running Man sign has been there for a long time–sure enough, it says online that it has been there in various forms since 1935!

Katie found an udon noodle place where she helped Priscila-the-Brave enjoy a delicious lunch.  Todd and i did fine with some type of potato and Japanese fried chicken, which were both good. 

We walked even further north than even Katie had even been, into Hommachi.  It was a very high end business and retail district.  There were Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, and Tesla stores, where Todd could let his imagination run wild 🙂  

As we have seen so many times, there was a temple and shrine together within a little area in Hommachi.  People wandered in frequently, a little respite from the city.  Katie taught them the ritual of using the water behind them and pouring a little into your left hand, then your right, then putting a few drops in your mouth, then pour the cup out towards you.  You can put a 5 yen piece in the offering box, which is supposed to be the luckiest amount.  

Todd and Priscila slept a couple hours before we went out in the rain for an evening of karaoke with Katie’s friends.  There were 10 of us eventually in a bigger room and that was really fun!  Gradually Katie’s friends are going their separate ways–one of her best friends left for Atlanta today.  I guess we all have people moving in and out of our lives, but it is definitely more frequent in this lifestyle.  Todd impressed me with his map reading skills on the way home after late night karaoke.  Nothing looked familiar and I kept saying I thought we were going the wrong way, but he was right and soon we were out of the rain in our cozy apartment.

Thankfully the rain stopped at some point overnight.  Today it has been partly clouding and 68 degrees.  It gets very damp in some of the apartments.  In fact, the guy I met from Finland talked about how much colder it feels here than Finland because it is more humid and nothing is insulated here.  So this morning we ran the heat for a few hours and it felt really good and helped dry out the place.

Todd, Priscila, and I walked into Shinsaibashi for a late lunch at an Italian restaurant Katie recommended called Napoli.  The pizza was very good and I would definitely eat there again.  Todd was laughing because they kept playing 1980’s boy band music like the Backstreet Boys.  

It was back to normal “post Golden Week” crowded today, with people queuing up for this octopus restaurant. I can’t even imagine how busy this place must have been last week!

Today Priscila navigated and did a great job!  She has an aptitude for the language and is already helping communicate.  For instance, we wanted to take the extra pizza home.  Since we saw pizza boxes we figured they might do that at Napoli restaurant.  I couldn’t make the guy understand what I wanted, but she quickly chimed in with the Japanese word for take-out and we were all set!

Some people Todd works with requested he bring back a variety of Kit Kats, which are very popular here!  We found raspberry flavored, green bars the flavor of macha, and like vanilla cake or something.  We also stopped at Kaldi and lo’ they had grape jam–very unusual here!

This evening I went out to buy a deck of cards at Don Quijote–the place that Katie aptly describes as Amazon.com in a 5 floor store.  No problem, I’d just run out and grab them.  Except DQ wasn’t where it was supposed to be, or where I was sure it was.  I had to pull out my map and ended up at a crazy different DQ that was packed.  I didn’t even try to find them on my own, I just showed a photo on my phone of a deck of cards to the clerk, who helpfully walked me to exactly where they were, otherwise I’d still be there!  People were walking out with bags and bags of stuff from this popular store!  Katie taught me how to thank someone profusely, but I just couldn’t remember it.  I realized that instead of thanking the clerk, I said “excuse me.”  We were laughing earlier because even when you’ve practiced, the right words don’t always come out when you’re worried about an actual conversation.  I’m sure the people in Shinsaibashi are used to it though, just as we are in Orlando!

Photo:  Arrivals gate at KIX