Japan Day 4 – Osaka

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

We didn’t have a lot of time in Osaka so we walked around the shopping district. We saw lots of interesting things.

When in Japan, be careful what you order for breakfast or you may end up with a Filet-O-Fish sandwich!

A very crowded shop that only sells photos of Japanese pop stars

Panda pants on a grown man? OK!

Osaka

Osaka was so crowded and Faith and I both noted that the cultural differences between Japan and Korea were very apparent. In Korea, people have no problems pushing right by you, but politeness was out in full force in Osaka. Even through the crowds, we weren’t pushed once and people actually apologized for the tiniest bump!

We also came across a peace parade.

My January trip to Japan was one of my favorite trips because I got to see a lot of really neat things in Hiroshima, Miyajima and Osaka, but also because I got to spend a lot of time with Faith before she moved back to the States.

Japan Day 1

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Back in January, I spent a few days in Japan with my friend, Faith. Faith and I met two years ago at our EPIK orientation and have been friends ever since. We both really wanted to see Hiroshima so off we went!

On the plane to Osaka, we sat next to a Korean high school student that was going to Osaka all alone. She was really sweet and carried around a notebook. She asked everyone she talked with to write down their names. She wanted to take a picture with us so I took one too!

Being from America, I’ve gotten used to paying for food on planes if I want a snack. Even on a budge airline (Air Busan), they provided us with a meal… and our flight was only 1 hour 20 minutes.

When we got to Osaka, we immediately made a beeline for the bathroom. We were not prepared for what we saw there. It was amazing!

We headed straight for the train station to get our Rail Passes. To anyone planning to travel around Japan a bit, I HIGHLY recommend getting a Rail Pass. They must be bought outside of Japan so plan accordingly! Japan is expensive — especially transportation! The rail pass covers any JR train, bus or ferry so we definitely got a lot of value out of our rail passes.

The train from Osaka to Hiroshima was so nice!

Once we got to Hiroshima, we headed straight to our hostel. We were really happy with our hostel! It was really conveniently located and easy to get to. We booked a private room for 2 at J-Hoppers Hiroshima and we slept on mats on the floor. It was surprisingly comfortable!

After we dropped our bags at the hostel, we went exploring around Hiroshima.

We found a really great restaurant. We had fried rice and fried dumplings and it was all amazing! The owners of the restaurant had a little boy that was so adorable. He spent a lot of the night pretending to be shy and then coming to entertain us. And when we left he shrieked “Byyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” at us.

Before and After

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

I let Faith do all of the photography for our trip to Japan because she brought her DSLR. When I saw them on Facebook, I noticed she had played with the colors on some before posting them… a lightbulb went off in my head. I took the original photos she had given me and decided to do some editing of my own.

When we were in Osaka, we walked through the shopping district and came across a river. The view was really pretty so we took a few photos. There were a lot of shadows and as novice photographers, it was hard for us to really capture the moment.