Pokemon Center and Osaka Castle

Last weekend we went to the Pokemon Center in Osaka. There are only 6 of these stores in the world and Nathan has been incredibly excited about getting to visit one! We took the train and carefully plotted out a route from the trainstation to the store. Of course we immediately got lost! Being surrounding by huge buildings and hordes of people with no way of communicating was a little intimidating. It was also extremely hot and humid, so the kids ran out of patience quickly. Eventually we found it though and all of the aggravation was forgotten!

We had lunch at a little English style pub, where no one spoke English! Nate had rice and Coke for lunch again. The girls ate "chicken nuggets", i.e. tempura chicken.

Then we headed to Osaka Castle. This is a beautiful castle in the middle of an immense park in the center of the city. Walking through the park and up the hill in the heat was definitely a challenge, but worth it once we got there! The girls were fascinated by the Japanese princesses who once lived there. However, the only pictures we could find showed elderly women...not quite what they had in mind! Eventually we found a picture of a young princess. This was much more acceptable. Unfortunately, she died young of some sort of illness. Laura decided that the history must be wrong at that really she got better and got married and had lots of beautiful dresses! Nathan loved the holographic scenes that were set up along the walls. They kind of looked like shadow boxes set into the walls, but with holograms providing the people and action. They all loved the movie that discussed the individual scenes from a huge painting of a battle. However, we had to drag them away when they started showing the drowned corpses and rape scenes...the Japanese don't worry about childish sensibilities! The truely amazing thing was that all of this was in English. All of the signs were in Japanese and English and many of the computer generated items displayed in both English and Japanese.

We all really enjoyed it, but we were exhausted the next day! Next weekend I think we'll try a boat tour of Kobe...something that doesn't involve walking in the heat!