Osaka & Kyoto

It was a public holiday today (National Sports Day? Or something) so on Friday Cayley & I went to Kansai for a few days.
Right so let me just start by saying that we left Tokyo at 2pm, and actually arrived at Vivian's dorm at 1am.
I am not even lying.
We had 3 options for transport; shinkansen, but it was too expensive for the length of time we were going. Nightbus, but Cayley refused. OR, normal trains.
So like the idiots we are, we chose the third options. THIS is what we had to do
Meguro > Shinagawa > Atami > Hamamatsu > Toyohashi > Ogaki > Maibara > Shin-Osaka > Senrichuo.
But by the time we got to Shinosaka, the subway was closed, so we had to take a taxi, then the driver got lost and blah blah blah. So yeah, 1am.
Anyway the next trauma is that we had to sleep on Vivian's floor. (Yes, Vivian, if you're ready this, you have been exposed). Cold. Hard. Concrete. Floor.
Three nights of pain with a bag for a pillow LOL.

Anyway moving on to our adventures.
On the Saturday we went to Osaka, and met up with John & Paulina who are at Kyodai. We had a marvellous karaoke celebration for Vivian's birthday. In which John got a bit carried away singing 80s power balads to me. And I myself got rather carried away with an impression of that wart-hog from The Lion King..
We had a good old wander round Umeda & Nanba too, and of course found the Book Off, to waste more money.
Osaka, by the way, was FREEZING.
Not so much during the day (although I wouldn't call it warm), but at night it was literally the north pole.

I think Osaka is a lot more like the Japan that people imagine. Tokyo probably sees a lot more foreigners, but quite a few people tend to stare at you in Osaka, especially the kids. Not that I care, really. STARE ALL YOU LIKE, PHOTOS ARE 500 YEN A PIECE. Its also a lot more rural out there, despite Osaka being a fairly big city. 

On the Sunday we went to Kyoto for the day.
Cayley and I went to Kinkakuji in the morning, and then in the afternoon we met up with Vivian and John and headed to Gion & Maruyama Kouen.

Oh yes and we saw some Geisha.
But, one was a man?
Hmm.
We suspected that the first lot we saw were FAKES. But as it got later we saw the  real Geisha out and about.

Anyway today we came back to Tokyo. For free.
(Really long story involving silly pasmo cards and holes in the train systems.)