Mike came to visit, we took a little self guided bicycle tour around Tokyo. I highly recommend if you are interested in bicycles and getting off the beaten path and away from the busy subway stations. We stayed near okachimachi which is really good for daytime market experience, but no real bars/restaurants are open late. There are a few bicycle rental places near Ueno/Okachimachi for 200 yen you get a mama cherry all day.
The next weekend we went to keirin which was also really fun, betting on bicycle racing just like horse racing, but we did not win. One of the big wins was the trifecta in order, it paid around 200,000 yen, this in on a 100 yen ticket so a good deal if you can win. The guys legs are freakin huge. The race is mostly a sprint where there are a few laps that are guided by a pace bicycle, the last lap and a half the pace bike drops out and the race is on. Apparently each bicycle can jump out in front of the pacer at anytime to kind of start the race on their own terms. Unfortunately there are no photos allowed inside and no alcohol, strange since alcohol is allowed almost everywhere in Japan and you can usually bring your own into events like basketball games.
After Keirin we headed down to Osaka to check out the city. This was my first time to Osaka and we decided to stay in a capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are awesome for 2 guys traveling alone, or anyone traveling alone really. The only downside is that you are limited on communication once you get into the capsule so its hard to tell when the other person is up and ready to go for the day, one day I lost mike for a few hours.
As you can see there is plenty of room for me, and Im about 5'11". Even some room for my bag. There is a TV and a little radio. Only drawback is you can hear other peole and alarms going off, so definitely bring some earplugs.
We went to check out the aquarium which was ok, but from my posts a few years ago youll see the Oarai aquarium is much nicer.
Later that day we went to the Osaska castle, which is more like a museum which is nice in that regard, but if youd like to see what the actual castles look like I suggest the Matsumoto castle posted earlier this year.
Osaka has a great number of places to hang out an explore if you are in for the nightlife. Mike and I found a place similar to utsunomiya where there are many small places lined up together, we sat at one and met a random guy who spoke really good english. This guys usual friday was to hang out at bars all night before catching the first train back to the suburbs and his family early saturday morning, gotta love Japan.
We took the night bus from Utsunomiya to Osaka which worked out pretty well. They turn the lights off around midnight and back on at 6, so if you can sleep in a somewhat reclined seat and 6hrs is all you need youll be good to go. I suggest the earplugs again.
