We kind of ran out of things to do here in Osaka now as well so we decided that the aquarium was better than nothing. I liked it, and Emma wasn’t exactly complaining either. Here are some pictures. More on Flickr. Jellyfish has to be one of the best animals in the world to photograph. You can’t possibly take a bad picture of a jellyfish…

After a few days here now we’ve seen the most common tourist spots of Osaka. They have good food and are plentiful in good restaurants. It really is a very nice place! It’s no Tokyo in terms of liveliness but it’s surely a place I could consider spending a larger amount of time. Here are some pictures. There are many, many more pictures on flickr this time.

Problem #1

The first is a new carry-on bag for flights. I’ve been looking for a long time and found a good Victorinox bag in London a year or so ago. I believe it was the following one.

Victorinox

However I have come to change my opinion on what I want. I have come to the conclusion that I do not like zippers on bags. I would rather have an aluminum frame with a sort of suitcase kind of “click-click” lock on it. This is because I never have a use for just opening a little bit of the bag. Either I open it fully or not at all, so a side-clasp kind of lock seems fitting. If someone who travels a lot has opinions on side-lock vs zipper than I’d love to hear them. Because a side-lock only closes the bag in one place I could see that perhaps it becomes a bit weaker in other spots, or if the bag takes a really hard hit and lock breaks then I’m fucked. A zipper seems more stable in a way, but at the same time; if a zipper takes a sharp hit in the side then it can open a little bit and then rip up further.

Anyway, I think I want a side-lock. I want the bag to be hard, either plastic or otherwise. That is, I don’t want a cloth bag.

I found a bag that looked really nice here in Osaka today of the brand Advance, but it felt a bit flimsy and wobbly in the dragging-handle and the quality overall was a bit iffy. It cost about 2000 SEK and was hardplastic and aluminum in the center (around the opening of the bag). It was really cool aluminum too so I wish I could find a picture of it, but I couldn’t. Here is the Samsonite version of the kind of bag I’m talking about.

Samsonite

I’m pretty much willing to pay any amount of money what-so-ever as long as I can guarantee the quality of the luggage is good and it has a really nice design.

Problem #2

3DS

My second problem is a much more recent desire. For 6 months or so since I’ve been in Japan I’ve been looking a little bit as buying a PSP or Nintendo DS (recently 3DS). I haven’t really been able to justify buying any of them because I really think the graphics suck on both platforms and I haven’t really been able to find any games that I’d actually want to play. I just basically want one because they look cool and seem like fun to play with (you see a lot of people here on the trains playing and stuff).

PSP

Yesterday I bought a game called Eternal Legacy on the iPhone and it’s in the category JRPG. That means Japanese Role Playing Game, or in other words: run around a lot, do quests, fight random dudes that show up here and there and follow some kind of basic storyline.

I think that game is really fun for some reason. The story is pretty weak, the fighting mechanics are pretty much the same all the time but for some reason I still want to keep playing it all the time. This leads me to believe that the graphics really aren’t that important, and that perhaps I could stand playing on a PSP or 3DS if the game is really good.

The problem with the iPhone is that a game drains a fully charged battery in 2 hours so I almost have to play it with the phone plugged in if I want to be able to use the phone for anything else as well.

Graphics is indescribably better on the iPhone, the resolution is like 3 times larger and the graphics engine just seems so much more powerful. But the reason the PSP and 3DS suck so hard (I assume) is because you can play for at least a full day (which probably means weeks for me) without charging.

Anyway, I want advice from the people that know me and that are familiar with PSP and 3DS. Should I buy any of the platforms? What JRPG games can you recommend (Monster Hunters?) ?

Are there any good JRPGs for the 3DS (or DS in general)?

Are there any other good games for any of the platforms that I might enjoy playing during those lazy mornings when you don’t want to get up until you have too or when you’re on the toilet or train?

I also have some things I’m wondering about region on the platforms and such. Part of me really wants to play a JRPG in Japanese, that would be awesome. But it would also mean that I would have to sit and look things up all the time or just not understand big parts of the story. And if you cut out the story then you only have bad graphics left
So if I buy anything I think I want to at least be able to buy a game in English, maybe I’ll try to play in Japanese first and see how that goes, if it sucks then I’m going to want to try to play in english, and that means whatever I buy has to support english region games.

Yesterday we came to the airport about 3 hours early since the bus came on time and it took half an hour less than it said on the time-table. That meant we got to check in very early, which also meant that when the time came to get on the flight and they scanned our tickets, they had new tickets waiting!

I assume because they overbooked the flight the earliest people (or just randomly) to check in got upgraded, and that was us!

We had economy tickets and was upgraded to business class. Too bad it wasn’t a longer flight
The seats and the service was absolutely outstanding compared to monkey class.

When we arrived Narita we took the bus to Tokyo and the weather in Tokyo was absolutely fantastic! I could walk around in a t-shirt and soak up the sun instead of having to have a sweater and jacket and still freeze like in Seoul. It was so awesome to get back to Tokyo. Everything was running smoothly again, trains were all running on scheduled normal time and a million people walking around everywhere unlike Seoul where they’re all in cars.

We went home and re-packed our bags a little bit real quick and then headed to the Shinkansen (bullet-train) for Osaka. The trip went really smoothly and it felt so good to be back in Japan where I can make myself understood in the language, I know how everything works and where to go to get tickets and everything. Awesome.

When we arrived in Shin-Osaka (the Shinkansen station) we asked a dude how to get to the station close to our hotel and it was only a couple stops away on the subway. No changes or anything. When we got to the station close to the hotel we didn’t even have to walk outside. The station is actually under the hotel so we just walked right up into the lobby. The hotel room is obviously not as big as in Seoul but it’s decent. Everything looks fresh and we have a little mini-fridge and really good internet so I’m satisfied!

We’re also on the 19th floor so we get a kick-ass view!