New Year, Oosaka and Stuff (Nara and Kyoto)

So cometh the holidays around 26.12 and I took a bus south, to Oosaka, city of commerence and flashing lights. There is also a nice castle in the city, which we (me and Saana) of course visited.




Oosaka has also an aquarium, which we visited too.


Picture is from the largest tank from the aquarium, inhabited by several mantas, two whale sharks (yes, whale sharks) and random schools of fish.

We also enjoyed the fish in other form, i.e. food. Few visits with Jussi, Pauli and Laura to fish-specialized izakaya proved that Oosaka deserves the reputation it has as 'Kitchen of All Earth' it has in Japan.

Image of Jussi, very much enjoying his beer. He also mistook a huge ball of wasabi as some sort of fishy food and threw it in his mouth as one piece. The reaction was worth seeing.

Me with a crab we ate at izakaya, turned out to be expensive piece of meat. Though, I must admit that the crab was also really delicious.


As noted, we drank some beer with the fishes, and when we ordered our third beer, the waiter commented that 'the booze is strong in you' or in understandable english 'whoa, you can sure drink a lot'. At the time of our 6th serving of beers, he just wrote down our order shaking his head in disbelief.


We (that being me, Saana and Jussi (but not the Jussi above) visited Nara, the ancient capital of Japan and home of one huge temple and swarms of cookie-hungry deers.




Said deers (being fed by Saana, or actually forcing Saana to feed them).
Said temple.

As I spent some 9 nights in Oosaka, we had time to see a lot. I'll tell you later about all that. For now, time to do something else.