Japan: Osaka

This morning we finally had time to eat the suprisingly good breakfast that our hostel serves.  There was a big pot of rice with assorted toppings and then a simple spread of baked goods and hard boiled eggs.  

Next, we boarded a train and went to Osaka, Japan's Second City and merchant capital.  We lined up in one of the shopping malls for Rikuro-ojisan no mise, Uncle Rikuro's Cheesecake!  You can't buy just once slice so we purchased a whole one that had come out of the oven less than two hours before.  It turns out that two people nearly can share one cheesecake because they are made with much less cream cheese and are more like a fluffy and wiggly souffle.  Less calories, amirite?  We sat inside the shop while we ate and watched the bakers.  Each 8-inch cheesecake is made with a sprinkling of raisins in the bottom.

Our second stop was the very touristy open air street food and shopping area known as Dotonburi, where we had takoyaki.  The little croquettes of octopus and onion were drizzled with two kinds of sauce and topped with fish flakes.  Neither Hans or I cared much for the consistency but it was fun to watch them make more takoyaki.  Batter is poured into a large griddle with semi-spheres and then a guy flips the little balls around with chopsticks to cook all sides.  Frankly, it was impressive.  To finish with a bit a flare he dumped a good measure of sake over them.

Yum yum takoyaki yum yum takoyaki

There were some very interesting signs

The stadium is old-school.  The seating behind home plate and up to first and third base all have individual stadium seats but we were in a bleacher section with a teeny tiny bench seat assigned to each of us.  The atmosphere at a Japanese baseball game is more like that of a soccer/football game.  Each team had a pep band that lead the cheers and songs.  Everyone had a set of hollow plastic bats that they would beat in time as the chanted and sung.  There were even cheerleaders!  For the seventh inning stretch every blew up balloons that had whistles on the end and after a short song they were released into the sky!  The food was pretty great.  At one stand you could buy a bento box that was themed by each Hanshin player.  My absolute favorite part was the beer girls walking around with mini-kegs on their backs.  I got draft beer delivered to my seat!

Sadly, the Tigers lost to the Dragons today.

My lunch was named for Tigers' pitcher Shintaro Fujinami

Seventh inning...er...balloon release

When we returned to Kyoto we were extra tired after sitting in the afternoon sun for four hours.  We decided to get an easy dinner so we went back to the okonomiyaki place from two nights ago and had a great time.  Hans got the yakisoba and it was soooo good.