Chuseok | Osaka Day 4

It's not CG! They just film this thing. Honest.

Our last full day in Osaka! We weren't really sure what to do, other than sleep a lot. But that would have been a waste. We ummed and aahed debating whether we should catch a train to Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, or just go to another place in Osaka. The Kansai region is way too big and interesting to spend just a week there. It's heartbreaking!

After far too much deliberation, Nick suggested we go to Universal Studios. There were quite a few adverts around the area we were staying in, and in the tourist brochures we had. Me, being the tight-fisted person I am, refused and insisted it was too much money, but after seeing how little a dent we'd made in our spending money, I guess he twisted my arm. The main reason we found it was because we'd read about an Attack on Titan exhibition there, but it won't make an appearance for quite a few months. Booooo.

So, we got dressed, hopped on a train and...promptly got lost and missed our transfer station. Oops. Having too much fun staring out the window. We had a bit of a freak out, after realising we should have corrected our mistake about 20 minutes' journey ago, and now had to hope we could get the right train back. The big clue should have been that the bay area is only really about 30-45 minutes away from our train station. So, it was actually kind of late in the day by the time we managed to fix our mistake, but it was a nice train ride, the weather was good, and we still had plenty of time to play.

Firstly, the area around the station for the park is similarly USA-themed, with pseudo-American style buildings in various wacky colours and proportions selling all kinds of food and souvenirs. This included a Shounen Jump store, which I got very excited by until I realised I don't actually have any kind of emotional investment in any of the SJ shows any more. Well. Nothing they were selling, anyway. But it was still cool to see Luffy and Naruto hanging out, taking over the world together.

Toto, I don't think we're in Japan any more...

 It's really strange, riding through very distinctly Japanese cityscapes, to then arrive in a small chunk of what many people perceive to be North America. I went to Orlando, FL when I was about 4, and I'm probably a lucky one. I'd assume a lot of people only know about that part of the world from what they see on TV, so despite Nick telling me this was all a bit of a caricature, I couldn't help but feel I'd somehow touched down somewhere in California.

We had a quick lunch at Mel's Drive-In, which was really quite lovely and looked great. We shared our table with a little bright blue damselfly. I think he just wanted some fries.

So, as should be obvious to you all, my main attraction to this place (aside from the sadly-absent Kyojin) was Hogwarts. Aw yeah. It was SUPER busy that day, probably because that week coincided with several holidays in quite a few Asian countries. So, they had restricted access to a lot of the big attractions and of course this included the Harry Potter section. Come on, people. This is my thing. It's my home. Let me innnn.