Arigato Japan

More Japanese facts:
1. It isn't really called Japan. It's called Nippon. Japan is what we call it for some reason, it does sound better though.
2. Japan is made up of 4 main islands. It also consists of many smaller ones too, 3,000 in fact!

Although the place can be hectic and in your face it doesn't take long to get away from it all, as we found at Mount Fuji. The people on the whole are really friendly and try and help, unlike in China when sometimes you walk into a place the staff literally run off into a back room rather than deal with you!
There's no-one trying to sell you stuff, no-one staring at you and you're definitely not a target for con-men in such a strong economy. The food is great, unless you don't like fish as it seems most dishes are based around anything that lives in the sea. There are loads of good looking women everywhere, which always helps, and everything is generally very clean and well organised. These guys know what they're doing and the transport around the places are an example of that. It's streets ahead of England. But there are many similarities with good ole blighty that also make the place really cool. I'd love to go back to Japan and miss it immensely. The best in Asia so far!

Japanese fast food. Cheap and great!
Japanese beer. Fair cheap and great!

Oh Osaka

The Japanese bubble had to burst at some point. Osaka was that point. We learnt a couple of things here. 1. It's worth spending a little extra money on accommodation to have a more pleasant stay (our 6 pound a night room didn't quite live up to much!!!). 2. Not all Japanese people are clean.
Right from the start Osaka didn't feel as good as other locations. As we were flying out from here we ended our Japanese experience here. Not knowing much about any of the places before hand didn't seem to matter before but as it turns out Osaka was a huge nothing. A big city with a lot of people and not a lot of much else. Grim as they come. It's a shame we spent 2 days here but that's the way it sometimes goes.
Our hostel was abysmal, a real grot fest. We should've twigged when we could only book single rooms but we didn't expect the place to be full of disgusting old men walking around like zombies in their underwear. The hallways stunk of piss and the rooms stunk of stale fags. Lovely. Quite why you had to take your shoes off at the door to this hovel we had no idea!
We slept in the sticky brown room to the sound of Japanese men hacking up in the bathroom. If that sounds like fun then this is the place for you! Dire. I wouldn't recommend a thing from this place. Osaka castle looked good but by the time we arrived it was closed and absolutely throwing it down! For food, of the cheaper variety, we had found a reliable Japanese resource. Mosburger. A Japanese, we think, burger place. Oh the shame. It had to be done though and at least it was much better than McDonalds. I was really thinking ahead to Australia at this point and getting thoroughly fed up with city life. I was not looking forward to our next destination, Bangkok, one bit. I didn't want to go back to another Beijing. Things turned out much different though.
On our last day in Japan we tried to find something of interest in Osaka. We failed. Or maybe Osaka did. Even the river walk was awful, rank greeny brown water with about as much enticing views as a sewage farm. The only interesting thing was seeing a German guy we'd met in Yokohama just strolling round. Another one of those odd little coincidences absolutely miles apart.
The homeless exist in their droves here. We had seen nowhere near as many anywhere else. Of all the places to come and choose to be homeless they chose Osaka. What a bunch of spivs. Still the climate was good, the could sleep right on the pavement with only large cockroaches covering them rather than a cardboard box. No-one begs much here and we are the last people they ask, I think if they could speak some English then maybe they'd try but who knows.
This was another opportunity to try and save the situation by trying some local delicacy. What we thought were sort of dough balls turned out to be dough balls....but with octopus suckers in. Nice. They weren't too bad as it happens but I will never, never have them again!
We watched a tv programme showing the highlights of Osaka. True to form they tried really hard to make something out of nothing and everything it showed was one of the dire uninteresting rubbish we'd seen. What a disappointment. Let's get out of here.