Pictures? Whoops! Sorry! :( I need to access Christine's laptop for the remaining pictures...

We found the Nostalgia Museum on Friday. It was more different than we expected, actually - it was inside Universal City, and was a store with a backroom of some older toys. There were lots of Smurfs, Star Wars figurines (I must add there was a Darth Vader and a Jar-Jar - one was cool while the other was scary, take a guess which is which :P) and a number of other figurines - something called a "Billy Boy" or something like that, tin figures (including lots of Astro Boy)... it was actually a bit disappointing, as it wasn't truly a museum per se...

What was more interesting was actually Universal City. We were unaware that the Nostalgia Museum was inside this Universal City, so we decided to wander the place. See, there's a Universal Studios in Osaka, and the JR Rail car is covered with Sesame Street characters, so it was really easy to find our way there. Once we got there, we found lots of places that we thought were a laugh. First off, one of the signs we saw labelled the area as a "Collective USA". There's an Western-themed arcade (which had a giant dinosaur wearing a 10-gallon hat), there was a "Popcorn Papa" store, a few Universal-themed stores (selling such wonderful items such as Back to the Future Butter Cookies, packed in a DeLorean-shaped box), and even a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co restaurant. I wasn't even aware this was a chain... (oh yes, I sat on the park bench and tried to put my feet in the shoes... and King-Foot made his appearance again! They didn't fit. :P) We also went to the front entrance of the Universal Studios, and realized that it looked like Sesame Street had invaded and taken over the Studios. It was very much like going to any other Amusement area in the world, just like, say, Paramount Canada's Wonderland. (Only we didn't go. :P)

On our final full day in Osaka, we went to the Osamu Tezuka Museum. Osamu Tezuka is known as the "God of Manga" and is the one who created Astro Boy. Back in Hiroshima, there were several references to "Tetsuwan Atom" as he is called in Japan, as he was a robot running on Atomic power. The Museum that honoured Osamu Tezuka is a small place, but packed with lots of materials pertaining to his life - first off, we wandered through an area that documented his years as an artist, then continued on to see more art that he made over the years. In one section, several other Manga artists had also sketched their favorite Tezuka works. One of the coolest features of the Museum is the Animation Retrieval Machine, which allowed visitors to see every animated episode of Tezuka's work. Christine and I decided to watch the first episode of Astro Boy (in Japanese) - considering its age, the animation was quite good, and the story was very easy to understand. I've recently found that the original Astro Boy series is available on DVD, which includes 2 of the original Japanese-langauge episodes as well.

Later on in the evening, we made our way to the Hyogo Prefectural Museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art had a number of pieces there, and I was amazed at the diversity of the pieces there as well. I think we took photgraphs in there, but I can't remember at this point in time...

We went back to Tokyo for our last day in Japan. We unfortunately didn't get a chance to go to the Kabuki Theatre like we had planned, but we agreed that whenever we come back, we'll go there. :) What we did get to see, however, was Ueno Park at night. The Sakura had all fallen and only a few blooms remained, but we decided to take a few nighttime shots before packing it in for the night. We had to leave the next morning for the airport, so we headed back to the hotel.

A note to those who ever want to go to Japan: Pay attention if you plan to use the JR Rail. If you don't, you might get on a "Rapid Service" train which will skip a few stops, or you might grab a train that's going the wrong way. We had the former happen in Hiroshima (when we needed to only go one stop), and the other in Osaka (when I thought it was a Loop-Line like Tokyo). It's tricky, but I'm certain that with enough use and perseverance, it would become second nature.

Has it already been a month since we returned from Japan? Man, time flies. We're still shuffling through all the pictures - I realized that after showing the entire 2,000 (!) pictures, that we took a lot of nature/landscape shots. Well, we'll see how we can trim it down a bit. Two thousand pictures is a bit too much to chew on. I'll get some pictures up soon, too. :P