What a day - very challenging. My knee is still unreliable, so Tom went hunting and gathering for breakfast, and managed to bring back some sandwiches (a little uncertain of the filling in one of them, but the other was egg, lettuce and carrot), and some milk for coffee. After brekky we set out toward the aquarium - catching a JR train to Bentencho station, and then catching a different subway train on the Chuo line to Osakaka - this involved using a machine to buy a ticket for the second one, which was alright on the outward trip, but I think we paid the wrong amount the second time on the way back, but it was okay, we're talking about $4, not $40. There are not many westerners around, just lovely Japanese people. Haven't seen a single overweight one! As we walked from Osakaka station toward the Ferris wheel, we saw a 7Eleven selling umbrellas. My $10 South American walking stick had decided not to work, collapsing all the time to a size only useful to Eliza, so Tom threw it in the bin and bought a black umbrella, which was soooo handy. We found a large giraffe made entirely of Lego at the base of the Ferris wheel, advertising an exhibition in the Tempozan shopping village, and then bought the combo ticket to go on the Ferris wheel and also visit the aquarium. The Ferris wheel, formerly the biggest, tallest and most technologically advanced in the world, has now been surpassed by the London Eye. It was just wonderful, and gave us a great perspective of Osaka. The wheel lights up at night to tell people what sort of weather to expect the next day. We then walked through the Tempozan shopping village to the Aquarium where you take this incredibly tall escalator to the top and make your way back down to the bottom, passing through all different regions of the Pacific displayed in the fish tanks, some with other creatures as well. e.g. Penguins (King, rock hoppers and Gentoo), ibis, river otters, sea otters, harbour seals, sea lions, capybara, whale sharks, so many different types of rays, and dolphins. It was wonderful. There were quite a few groups of young children there on excursions. Hardly any westerners. After spending a few hours in the aquarium we returned to the shopping centre where we bought some subway for lunch at 3pm. Yes, I know it's not exotic food, but we will get to that! We had thought we'd buy bento boxes each day from the train station, but either they're not as common as they used to be, or we just don't recognise them! We're hoping we'll be more fortunate tomorrow. On our way back we stopped in at the JR office and booked reserve seats for tomorrow's journey to Hiroshima, on the Shinkansen again. The voice on the train system pronounces Osaka a little different to what I expected - I thought it was like "o- sark a " but the PA voices on the train system calls it "o-sucker". We were also going to go to a transport museum but we've found it closed 3 years ago! :(