Amagasaki 2 (for Mar. 18)

We awoke briefly while Carla and Tyler were getting ready for work, but conked out again until 10:30. We spent the rest of the day until Tyler got home unwinding, blogging, reading, emailing, and doing other computer stuff. Tyler got home mid afternoon and we headed out at 3:30 to meet Carla by the Kitanozaurus statue. From there we went out to eat, and then tour downtown Osaka.





We ate on the 29th floor of some building that had a view of a building where Carla works a couple of times a month (with OS on it) and the hotel that they stayed in for 2 weeks when they first came here (under the Coke sign).









If Celeste wanted to see busy Japanese street scenes, we came to the right place. The underground catacombs of corridors and shops are filled with throngs of people. Above ground, it was much the same, except that it was cold and drizzling. While the underground corridors are quite wide, the above ground streets (at least those intended for walking and shopping) are quite narrow and covered to keep out the rain.


We also toured a multi (about 8) storey department store that had almost as many employees as customers, something like the Bay, but way, way more. There were store employees standing around everywhere, seemingly doing nothing. There was a uniformed girl at the bottom of the escalator greeting everyone who got on and another girl running the elevator and announcing each floor. We picked up some yummy pastries, but it is impolite here to eat while walking and there are no places to sit down, so we took them home and made an early night of it.