When we arrived we decided to buy so called express passes, which let us stand in a piority que once per popular attraction. It costed us the double but 5-10min of queuing instead of 1-2h sure made it worth it, especially since I probably won’t go there again.

Unlucky for us the Spider-Man ride was under maintenance so we couldn’t try that one. And one of the attractions I was looking forward to the most (Space Fantasy) turned out to involve some heavy spinning and was therefore not recommended for those easily getting travel-sick, so I reluctantly decided to skip that one.

On the other hand I got to experience the Hollywood Dream ride, the Jurassic Park ride and a “4D” cinema for the first time. Another attraction was the Terminator show with a merge of 3D, live acting and scenes from Terminator 2. I found it really cool and enjoyed it a lot. Other attractions was the Jaws ride, with some live acting included, and the Backdraft show, which was quite cool. But the one attraction I enjoyed the most was probably the simulation ride Back to the Future, it was just so fun! It really felt like we were riding a rollercoaster through some really exciting environments, even though we in fact were on the same spot all along. I got quite travel-sick though but that didn’t make it less awesome.

Lastly, we enjoyed the pretty Magical Starlight Parade during the evening. I’m usually not the romantic type but I have to admit that show had romance allover it and I loved it! My favourite part was probably the last one, which was based on Cinderella.

At my table sat one guy from Shanghai and another Chinese-speaking man from either Taiwan or China (irritating enough I can’t remember!) and last but not least: the very pleasant and funny Anna from Sweden! Anna doesn’t live in the same building though (and she has already graduated) but they probably put her at our table out of consideration for me. Despite us both being Swedish we basically only spoke in Japanese so the four of us at the table could participate in the ongoing conversation at all times. We spoke mostly about games and series since that was a shared interest among all of us.

At first I didn’t feel like going to the party since I believed it would be more fun to hang out with my usual friends, but I’m so glad I went because it really was super fun. Not only did I make some new awesome friends, I also got to taste takoyaki for the first time. Moreover I got to make the takoyaki myself which was very fun. Additionally, it was all-you-can-drink and everything was, once again, free! Gosh, I really love this school…

After the takoyaki party me and Anna went to an international pub included in a chain called “The Hub”, where we met up with a bunch of friends. Except talking with Anna and some classmates, I talked a lot with two super nice Singaporeans and later on some very funny Japanese people who shared the same table. Yet again another evening was added to my list of “Awesome evenings in Osaka”, wonderfully enough they just keep adding up!

After having a very nice chat with one of my classmates during the bus trip, we arrived outside the the huge and beautiful Akashi-Kaikyō National Government Park. We were lucky with the weather at first but then it started to rain a lot and it didn’t really stop until we got back to Osaka. It was a refreshing trip nontheless, a quick visit to the beach included.

Ready for some fun!

Saturday evening we went out for an all-nighter with nomihōdai, club and karaoke. We went to one of the most popular clubs here in Osaka, namely Giraffe in Namba. It was a super nice club with four floors and great music. I left my camera in a coin locker during the club visit so sadly I have no pics from there, and I forgot to take any during the karaoke. Anyway, here are at least two from the nomihōdai:

Yet again, an awesome evening with the best of people!

Today it is Saturday though and once again it’s time for nomihōdai and possibly some club dancing after! Wee-hoo!

Anyway, brace yourselves! Flower pics incoming:

After the ikebana we paid a visit to the nearby Den-Den Town (Nipponbashi). Den-Den Town is like Tokyo’s Akihabara and is heaven for anime/manga and retro game lovers. To my great surprise and delight I found a Super Potato store in the midst of everything. They have tons of retro games and funny game merchandise and an equal store (same chain) can be found in Akihabara. It was my favourite store in Tokyo so it was an epic discovery for me. Win!

After 2 hours of gluttony we left Umeda for a trip to Kyocera Dome Osaka, a huge stadium usually used for baseball games (by far the most popular sport in Japan). Yesterday the famous South Korean band Big Bang held a concert there so people were allover the place. The reason we went there was to accompany two friends (big fans of Big Bang) who wanted to buy some concert-related stuff. Once outside the Dome I thought it would’ve been nice to have a ticket though, my guess is their show would’ve been an awesome experience.

With the shopping business taken care of, we continued to Umeda where we, after fooling around for some time, timed a cool projection show outdoors by chance. And after that little event we went to a friend’s workplace nearby, where we finished the evening with 2 hours of all-you-can-drink, some side dishes and two gigantic ice cream desserts we all shared. The dessert was a treat from our kind friend (thanks Tendy <3) and it was, as we say here, meccha oishikatta (very delicious)!

My room is ~16m² and I have, as you can see, my own kitchenette and bathroom. A really nice room I have to say! I have three different super markets and a 24/7 store about 5 minutes’ walk from here and walking to the closest subway station takes less than 10 minutes. I even have a hospital/clinic just a few minutes away so it’s quite the convenient area. The down-side is that there’s an airport not far from here so during day-time there are a lot of planes passing by at a very low altitude, so it’s often noisy. But! Like so many other things, you get used to it. I’m not bothered by it and hasn’t really been from the start either for that matter.

Here’s a random food pic and a pic of a backpack I bought during the weekend. They don’t really fit in any other post so I’ll just post them here: