Your Mission, Should I Choose to Accept It: Osaka
 

I'm taking an impulse trip from Maebashi to Osaka (4 hrs on the bullet train). The journey is based on no more than a few days of free time and a specific stuffed animal found only at the Osaka aquarium.

Since this trip is spurred by a most particular mission (the acquisition of a certain strange stuffed animal), I am requesting other missions to fill my time.

Got a rumor of a restaurant with meals meriting a mouthful?
A glimpse of graffiti on a train station bathroom wall?
An urban legend you need dispelled so you can sleep at night?
Want to live vicariously through my experiences, various and sundry?

Send me your dearest dreams and ideas, the fun, the fantastical, the utterly bizarre.

I will take the best suggestions and post them on my website along with a detailed story of the events that follow.

(Please give me as much detail as possible- such as specific location. The more information I have, the more likely the mission will be accomplished.)

I will leave tomorrow morning (Thursday, August 16 2007) and arrive in Osaka sometime in the early afternoon. I’ll be there until Sunday night or until the (mis)adventures run out.

I love Osaka... The Merry-go-round on the top of the Hep-5 building in Umeda is quite a site.

Probably the only bar in Japan to serve Hoegaarrden beer is a couple blocks up the street (I wish I could remember the name... it's in the B1 of a brand new "shopping building", less than 5 minute walk from Hep-5 alone the Hankyu line, I think).

Expo-Land just reopened after some people were mangled on a ride a couple months ago (one dies and one lost and arm, I think).

Ame-mura in Shinsaibashi/Namba is pretty much must see.

Thanks for the advice!

i went there with my mom for the food...
and there was this place out side of Osaka where theres this great bid waterfall that you can try to meditate under...

aha I live down the road from the aquarium. While you're in minato-ku go see that smallest mountain in the world that's here. You can also get a boat from the bay and go to USJ.

I second the ferris wheel that's on top of the HEP building. There's lots of nice resturants in Umeda, aaah I forgot the name but there's some famous okonomiyaki resturant around san-gai (yu...something? maybe. I passed it while drunk last week and remembered it).

There's an awesome jamacian takoyaki bar in Itami if you don't mind the 15 min train journey from osaka...called Jammin. The master and the girl that work in there are super nice.

Ummm that's all I can think of that doesn't resolve around gambling and booze.

Posting from Osaka.

Booze is always ok. And gambling is ok too, if it's an adventure. I haven't done the pachinko thing yet.

Not so much into the octopus. Not really into fishy tasting chewing gum. Sad, I know. Osaka is famous for it. But I do love okonomikyaki. You can even hide some octopus in it and I won't mind.

Which ferris wheel is the best? There are many of them. There's the HEP ferris wheel and then the Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel. Which is better? I'm guessing since you're both suggesting the HEP Ferris Wheel, this one is better.

HEP FIVE Ferris wheel visited.

See the story.

wow you just stay a few blocks ( probably ) from me :D

don't forget to go to sutenkaku ( in tennoji ) and dotombori

Thanks. Just did dotombori today. I'm too tired to make a post about it today, but I'll put something up in the next couple days.

Mutsuru, you are the quarry!
 

The original mission involving the aquarium failed. Hopefully I'll get the tales of the other adventures out soon.

Day 3 will come out soon I promise.

Here are my adventures in Dotombori. Sorry it took so long to type them up.

Day 3- The Long Day
 

I know I'm a terrible person, or at least a terrible procrastinator... but I've finally finished off my summer adventures.

Here's Day 3 in Osaka.