Let's Indulgence...

In honour of the foundation of this nation (and its associated holiday), Richard and I spent a long weekend in Osaka. We saved money by taking the bus, but otherwise it was a weekend of spending and fabulousness.
We arrived at lunchtime on Saturday, and promptly had lunch at - quite shockingly - Richard's first ever sushi train. From there we checked into our hotel, which was fabulous simply for being an actual hotel, not a hostel dorm, capsule, or scungy tatami room. After ooing and aahing at the prospect of having a half-decent room for a while, we made a beeline for Spa World.
Spa World is meant to be the world's largest bath complex or somesuch. It's a sort of Disneyland of onsen; the bulk of it is taken up by two floors of themed baths - the European zone and the Asian zone. Each zone has several themed areas within it, for example, the European zone has baths modelled on Finland, Rome, Greece, and Atlantis (which doesn't exist yet is European?). This month, the men (ie us) get the Europe zone, the women the Asia zone, and next month the genders swap, so we'll have to visit again in March. Check out their website for some snazzy photos. It's brilliant fun, quite ridiculous, and of course, thoroughly Japanese.
Hence thoroughly onsenned, we moved up to Umeda, where we had a disappointing dinner at one of the department store restaurants (though we did get to enjoy Kirin Black - why does hardly anywhere sell the tasty dark varieties?), and then hit up Osaka's rainbow side at a couple of bars. We were the only patrons at the first bar, Physique, which has a lovely, chatty bartender with a fondness for Kylie. The second bar had plenty of Japanese folks and a rather annoying bartender who looked like a ferret. We contributed to the karaoke with Total Eclipse of the Heart (not my choice). This promptly put me in a mood, and we immediately departed for a two-hour karaoke session for two.
On Sunday, we shopped. We shopped and did little else, besides frequent coffee stops. All I bought was some hair wax, Colgate (foreign toothpaste, hurrah!!) and tea-tree oil face wash, which we decided smelled like Australia, and hence was a good thing. We spent a while wandering the streets of Amerika Mura in search of gaijin-sized clothes. Gaijin sizes were lacking, but the Mura is certainly great fun for people-watching. Actually, that should be "fashion-victim watching." Later, back in Daimaru, we did find Richard a rather snazzy jacket and shirt ensemble, and we returned to our hotel to snazz it up for the evening.
Freshly snazzed, we had dinner in Namba, the wandered the arcades for the Baskin Robbins we had seen earlier. We did find it, eventually - five minutes after it had closed. Tragic. So we moved on to the Pig & Whistle to drown our ice-cream-lacking-sorrows in a pint or two of Kilkenny. And who do we meet right inside the door? None other than Wayne and Dawn! You're really never far from home, are you?
On Sunday, we hung about in Namba, waiting for our bus. We marvelled at the plastic samples and gigantic knives in Dogusuji-ya (Osaka's restaurant supply arcade), made up for missing Baskin Robbins the night before, and made use of a half-decent bookstore, where I found a new Frank McCourt book and a new collection of National Geographic photography.
Osaka is great for a weekend trip, and a bit of indulgence. I could never spend more than a few days at a time there, though; for all its attractions, it is not an attractive place, it's desperately lacking parkland, and I can not help but spend more than I should whilst there.