Osaka, Japan - Monday Morning

[my_own_advocate]

Good morning, Fandom, and welcome to a bright near-spring day in Osaka! It certainly feels like spring with the temperatures out here, at least. Hopefully you had a restful sleep and you're ready to tackle the sights of Osaka today, since you're leaving for Tokyo tomorrow!

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Hotel

[my_own_advocate]

Welcome to the Waqoo Shitaderamachi, a traditional temple lodging open to the public. The owners have tried to make this a tranquil, quiet space for you all to relax - there are even Zen meditation lessons available by a priest from a nearby temple. Or perhaps you'd like to try some Buddhist cuisine?

Rooms

[my_own_advocate]

This is a temple lodging, so quarters are pretty sparse, with tatami floors and typical Japanese-style beds - some with twin beds, some with a double. Just the one or two beds, though. Not that is going to be a problem, since you're all two to a room. ... except for those guys. Enjoy your single room, guys!


[ your room assignments can be found here! please keep the dirty stuff to your personal journals. ]]

Restaurant

[my_own_advocate]

Not a traditional restaurant per se, the Waqoo Shitaderamachi offers traditional Buddhist cuisine made by Buddhist principles. If you don't like it, well, there's always the children's menu, where they dump a bunch of extra stuff on your food so you can pretend it's steak or something.

Re: Restaurant

[howareyanow]

It was Monday, it was morning, there was breakfast...so you can bet there was a Wayne there, too, not only keeping up with tradition (because you don't fuck with tradition!), but also getting himself fueled up for some good city explorin' with the most important meal of the day.

Tracing Buddhist Images

[my_own_advocate]

If you'd like to pursue a Buddhist exercise today, the hotel has set up its event room for calligraphic tracing. Everyone gets an image of the Buddha to trace. The hotel recommends it as a way to refresh yourself and regain your concentration.

Re: Tracing Buddhist Images

[white_oleander]

Yeah, no one really had to say much before Astrid was latched into this one. Sure, she planned on spending most of her day buried in a sketchbook, anyway, but this was a great exercise to not only start her day, but, as they said, refresh herself and regain her concentration. If it weren't for the fact that there was so much else to see and do, she might have been content to do this for most of the day.

Re: Tracing Buddhist Images

[heroic_jawline]

Steve hadn't really had a chance to tap into his artistic side in a while, so he was happy to sign up for the class, especially in a medium he'd never tried before.

The experience was really relaxing, even if he had no idea where he would put a Buddha picture when he was finished.

Morning Religious Service

[my_own_advocate]

If you'd like, you can join the hotel's priest and some of its other guests in attending a Buddhist service at a nearby temple. Please do show respect.

Re: Morning Religious Service

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden wasn't a religious person, but she had spent most of her life reciting prayers every morning along with the rest of the crew, and keeping a small altar with icons, as was expected and proper. Because of that she stopped by the morning service, watching quietly at the back. It was exotic, like the religions of annexed planets that were usually absorbed into the Radchaai religion, and she tried to picture which gods would correspond to the statues at the front.

Re: Morning Religious Service

[stykera]

Stark was not religious, not really, and if he were he wouldn't belong to an Earth religion. He might describe himself as spiritual, if pressed on the matter.

Still, religions were always of interest. How could they not be, for a Stykera?

So he found himself quietly listening to the morning's service. Zhaan, he thought, would have liked it.

Osaka

[my_own_advocate]

Visit Osaka Castle

[my_own_advocate]

This imposing castle isn't the original - that was destroyed back in 1665. But Osaka Castle was rebuilt in 1930, and has been kept up beautifully since then. Take a tour of the museum of the castle's history, explore the many citadels and turrets in the surrounding grounds, or take a seat in the park and enjoy the view over the nice picnic lunch the school is shilling for.

Re: Visit Osaka Castle

[somethingwithturquoise]

For the sake of her wallet and because it seemed a good pace for how tired she was from definitely making the most of the night life last night, Summer was totally fine with doing the whole chaperoning thing for the tour of the castle and the lunch afterwards, even if she was a little distracted by her phone over the view (don't worry, plenty of shots of that were getting sent to Annie!) already looking ahead into potential possible good date places around Tokyo.

Re: Visit Osaka Castle

[noonedecidesmyfate]

Belle, being something of a nerd, had been intrigued by the idea of a museum in this castle as well as the castle itself. She had some prior experience with castles, after all.

The picnic lunch was just an added bonus.

Osaka Aquarium

[my_own_advocate]

Also known as Kaiyukan, Osaka's own aquarium claims to be the largest in the world.

Re: Osaka Aquarium

[thatwaslucky]

Rey found cities fascinating, and she also didn't really know what to do with them. The aquarium seemed like a good break from it, and while a lot of this reminded her of Dac, it was much nicer and more colorful here, walking around and looking.

It was actually pretty calming. Just shut your brain off and look at fish.

Re: Osaka Aquarium

[scoffs_at_tradition]

After wandering around for a while, Shuri wondered if it was a little too princessy to want a tank full of jellyfish in her room just to stare at all day. They were so cool.

Shopping in Shinsaibashi

[my_own_advocate]

The city's hopping shopping district sells just about anything and everything. And if you're tired of spending your money on objects, why not nip into one of the district's many arcades to play a game?

Re: Shopping in Shinsaibashi

[throughaphase]

Being in Japan was always a little weird for Kitty, considering almost every time she did it she ended up possessed by a recurring villain. Hopefully that didn't happen this time? Maybe she could have a vacation that didn't involve fighting The Hand of some offshoot thereof?

It did occur to her that going shopping was probably just daring that sort of thing to happen, but she had souvenirs to get, and really it was more likely to happen around Tokyo anyway.

Re: Shopping in Shinsaibashi

[sexy_giraffe]

Did Tahani have room in her suitcases--or her room--for more things? Absolutely not. Was that going to stop her? Not at all!

Visit Shitennoji Temple

[my_own_advocate]

Osaka is the site of Japan's oldest official temple. You're free to wander the beautiful temple grounds, and for a small fee, you can take a peek inside, from the courtyard to the five-storied pagoda.

Re: Visit Shitennoji Temple

[sake_shinigami]

Whenever Shunsui did manage to rouse himself from...wherever it was he wound up last night, he found himself here, no doubt looking like quite the oddity among the locals and like a set-piece to the tourists, but it was a surprisingly thoughtful, incredibly nostalgic way for him to start his day and ruminate over that balance cities in Japan managed to maintain between the old and acient and the modern and progressive. Something he felt the Soul Society could take a few notes from, if Old Man Yamamoto wasn't so mired in his centuries old ways. Why, if Shunsui was in charge...

Ara ara, but can you imagine such a thing? He would gladly suffer the old ways if it meant continuing to shirk responsibility. Bad enough he was in charge of a whole division, really, much less anything else...

So he just continued to drift his way through the temple and the grounds, enjoying the nostalgia, enjoying the serenity, in the few hours of the morning left.

Re: Visit Shitennoji Temple

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine liked architecture, so she made a point to visit the temple, partly because she'd researched the history and the rebuilding and wanted to see it for herself.

She even paid to see more of it, and hopefully they wouldn't mind her sitting around to sketch some things in the garden.

Rest of the City

[my_own_advocate]

Hey, Osaka's a big city. There's lots of other things to do. Go to the pottery museum, or ride the Tempozan Ferris Wheel. Or be a tourist and poke at the city's vending machines in search of something weird. Have you tried the lobster vending machine? Or the one with the soup stock with the actual flying fish in it?

OOC

[my_own_advocate]