Osaka and useful signage

yesterday morning it was raining the proverbial cats and so i decided i would not let it piss on my day in kyoto and i would instead jump on the shinkansen to osaka.　
Osaka is a very large place, I calculate the 3rd largest city in Japan. First I went to the aquarium, because it has a roof. Osaka aquarium is very impressive and features whale sharks in the middle. Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the sea. I felt ever so slightly sorry for these as they looked a bit like 2 guinea pigs in a shoebox, with not a lot to do except follow each other round, not having many options other than to move into the space that the other one is trying to move out of. Fortunately they were only 5m long; if they had been fully big whale sharks they would have had to be folded in half to be shoved into the tank in the first place. Somewhat like a baguette being inserted into a carrier bag.
At the start was a model whale shark wearing a santa hat, beside which I had a photo taken. Then I went up a big escalator to the top, and made my way back down slowly past otters, dolphins, and assorted fish. Also octopi, jellyfish and other such things. At the end there was a petting area, oddly featuring a capybara.
There was also a shark and ray stroking area, which hayley would have loved. I didn’t think there were many creatures in there at first, but then I saw a large pile of sharks in the end, sleeping apparently. These were only toy sharks, about 18 inches long or so, in a variety of colours. I found that the rays and the first few sharks were smooth and quite squeezable, however my attempt to impress the blonde Australian who was following me around fell somewhat short as I chose that moment to stroke the black shark, which had rough skin, and I pretty much leapt off the floor in terror. A notice here caught my eye:
“sting rays have dangerous barbs in their tails, which can kill people. However the barbs in these rays have been shortened” – oh that’s great, so thanks very much for shortening them, I would hate to know that the dangerous bit had been removed entirely…
After that I went to Osaka Castle and took loads of pictures, and answered a questionnaire which was in Japanese. Then I checked out the pachinko parlours and managed to find a sign that explained how to play. I did not have a go however.
It was still raining quite a lot, but I had borrowed a very manly black umbrella, which I used as an imitation sword. Japanese people don’t do this with their umbrellas, it would seem.
The last thing I did was to visit Umeda Sky Building, a new tower that is structurally not dissimilar to a polo balanced on top of 2 thin sticks. At the top are some glassed in escalators that take you across empty space through the middle of the hole 40 storeys up, this was mostly terrifying. Then you go out on the top and for some reason all I could think about was earthquakes. Basically if there’s one now, don’t even bother...
The view was impressive, all the way across Osaka in the East out to Kobe in the west. Can’t really describe it but it’s pretty cool to be able to see an aeroplane come all the way in and land. I noticed that there was nothing to stop me throwing my umbrella into the ‘hole’ and it falling to kill some Japanese man down below. “Don’t go over handrail” said another helpful sign.
Today I have gone on to Nara, the first permanent capital of Japan, about 1300 years ago. There are some very old temples here, most impressively Todai Ji, which features the largest wooden building in the world, a hall called the Daibutsu-den, containing a large bronze and gold Buddha called the Daibutsu. Also there are 1700 deer. I visited a shrine in the woods as well, this being called Kasuga Taisha, but was prevented entry by some kind of tedious ceremony in which a man in a white habit was positioning things on his mat. I did notice however an interesting thing, in that what I took to be a sheet of music I could see was written in Kanji script, i.e not our sheet music. This is probably not surprising, but as Vincent Vega pointed out, it’s the little things.
After that I visited a traditional Japanese house and went in some shops.
Other interesting discoveries:
The existence of a ‘ladies only’ carriage in the train;
The Japanese form two orderly lines for train doors, not like our vermin-like scrum for access;
Today I saw a tshirt slogan telling me about ‘opinion polls’ – a first for me;
A lot of them wear white surgery masks to keep the bugs off. This is fine, but it is a bit unsettling when the shop assistants do it and eye you facelessly when you enter;
There is a shop that sells the plastic models that depict plates of food, which restaurants use to illustrate what meals look like, and so that westerners can easily point to order. This really caused me problems, because I was hungry and went to order something I fancied and he just picked up the plastic thing and shoved it in a bag. This was not what I had in mind…