Benriful Pirate Weekend

wednesday_10_00 came over to visit me this weekend. She arrived Friday evening (we'll not mention the Hikone train mishap), whereupon we made a mad dash for my air conditioned living room.

We checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to be sunny on Saturday and cloudy on Sunday. Deciding that sunny weather would be best for getting photos of the pirate ship sights, we designated Saturday as our official Osaka day.

We arrived in Osaka around lunchtime and went to an Indian restaurant near the station, where we stuffed ourselves silly. We then made our way through the scorching heat to Osaka Bay to ride a pirate ship a model of the Santa Maria. They played dramatic music as the ship drew up...too bad it was bagpipe music. Not exactly fitting. We got on board for an hour cruise around Osaka Bay, during which we examined the ship from top to bottom and snapped pictures of everything. All the while they played music, but none of it suited the theme of the ship, though they did have a few touches to evoke a slightly more accurate atmosphere.

After we got off the ship and made purchases at the nearby aquarium gift shop, we headed over to Denden Town. On the way, we noticed a lot of festival performances being put on by groups of children. We got some pictures of boys playing traditional drums.

In Denden Town, we bought lots of stuff. In one store, I even spent more money than wednesday_10_00 because I ran into these guys. We had intended to go out for karaoke, but by that time we were so exhausted that we were ready to collapse. We returned to my apartment, glad not to be carrying things any longer.

Sunday we spent all day in the air conditioned living room watching marathons of anime and flipping through the Comiket catalogues we had bought. (Darn them for scheduling things we want to buy on all three days!) We didn't take so much as a step outside, because it started pouring rain.

The rain continued all day Monday. It was still raining when it was time to head out to watch Rose of Versailles. We chose to walk, since it's difficult to ride bikes in the rain while wearing skirts, but we wound up getting soaked anyway by splashes from passing traffic. We enjoyed the Takarazuka performance, which was VERY sparkly, though it did have some odd creative choices. (For example...this is the French revolution, right? So it calls for two Spanish dance numbers at the end...why?)

wednesday_10_00 packed up all her belongings and then set off to catch the train back to Chiba this morning. She'll have a busy couple weeks clearing out her apartment before she returns in August to stay with me until it's time for her to leave Japan.