Winterday

Here’s a picture heavy post about my second day in Japan.

Breakfast consisted of a can of BOSS coffee, onigiri and bread with noodles and pieces of a pork schnitzel inside - purchased at a local konbini:

 

The hotel is located in a slightly dodgy area (drunks and some establishments I’m pretty sure are brothels), but makes for some awesome photo opportunities:

 

 

 

Having decided to be cultural today, we started the day by going to Osaka Castle, located in an awesome park complex.

The moat surrounding the complex:

One of the entrances to the castle area:

  

A peaceful pond in the gardens:

The Main Tower:

A view of Osaka from the tower:

 

Before exiting the tower, you could pay 300 yen to take a picture of yourself wearing samurai garb:

Let’s try on!

I would totally have passed on this, if it wasn’t for one of the five helmets you could choose from. So… here’s me with a sword and golden moose horn helmet! (And Channel9 shirt)

After visiting the museum, we visited the Osaka History Museum. It shared building with NHK (Japan’s national TV channel). The building had a really interesting style:

One striking feature of Japan is the ever-present vending machines:

And natturarry, the engrish:

Here’s venerable Tommy Lee Jones, whoring himself out in an advertisement campaign for canned ice Boss coffee. (Cryorating: 5/10)

We spent the evening exploring the shopping area around the JR Namba  station. When we exited the station, we were greeted by a huge police force…

 

 

 

 

 

…playing brass:

A few more shaky cellphone camera shots of the shopping area:

We wandered around a bit an ended up in an alley where some establishments seemed a bit more seedy than others. I’m not sure what the sign below says, but it looks incredibly dubious:

After finding our way back to a more reputable shopping mall, we went for a few beers. When we sat down, we put a rucksack on the floor. Shortly after, the waitress brought a foldable bag basket to our table, unfolded it and placed the rucksack inside it. I couldn’t be making this up. Here’s photographic evidence:

Things were closing and we were tired, so we went back to the hotel. Got to be careful not to board the wrong train wagon though:

I’m writing this post lying on a tatami floor at our room at Hotel Chou while my travel companion is grabbing a shower. We arrived roughly four hours ago, and now immigration stuff, travel pass and accommodation is all in order.

Here’s a peek at where we’ll spend the next three nights:

PS: The TV is on, playing A-Team dubbed in Japanese. Mr. T will never be the same again.

Through my employer I got introduced to the DevExpress component suite, which is by far the most comprehensive and comfortable component suite I’ve tried for Windows Forms. Unfortunately, it’s really expensive.

Turns out, however, that they’re giving away the core set of editors and controls for free. Of course, it doesn’t include their comprehensive datagrid control, but a lot of the controls included in the free package can improve the GUI a lot.

Get all 60 free controls at http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Free/WebRegistration60/

PS: DevXpress ships their controls with a lot of really garish skins. Set it to use the WindowsXP style and it’ll assume the default look on all Windows themes. (Classic, Luna, Aero, etc)