Japan’s second city was my base for the duration of my Golden Week trip but I actually spent very little time there apart from showering and sleeping in my three-star Shin-Osaka hotel. May 5th was Childrens Day in Japan so there was quite a bit of action on the streets which created a bit of a festival experience.

After that I met up with John and Neil at Osaka-jo Koen park where we went to see what is perhaps the city’s most famous landmark. Osaka-jo castle also had some live performances going on in terms of dancing, singing, street artists and so on. Some guy brought a load of lizards which were getting a lot of attention from the kids who wanted to touch the creatures. Me too of course! For years I have thought about getting my picture painted but usually I just can’t be bothered to wait. However, this time I saw a man doing them for 500 yen (less than 4GBP) in just five minutes. Well I guess you get what you pay for as anyone can see that it looks more like Wayne Rooney than yours truly!

My other days on this Kansai trip were all pretty busy so it was nice to just relax and take it easy on this day. We had an afternoon pizza and beer session before ending up in the heart of Osaka where we had a couple more drinks before John had to get his train back to Tokyo ready for work the following morning.