Up early to go for a swim in the hotel pool. We had to cover up our tattoos with elastoplast so we will need plenty of that by the end of the week. Pool was very nice and quiet. We also spent a short while in the jacuzzi which was about 40 degrees.

Went for a walk around the castle gardens to see the plum trees in early blossom. Not fully blooming yet for another week but very pretty nevertheless and enough to have all the locals out for their picnics under the trees. Lots of japanese admiring the blossom too and practising their photography.

Late leaving the hotel to go and meet Jun Jun and got lost finding the local tube station whih turned out to be just 5 minutes walk away and got more lost finding Junjun's hotel so we were an hour late and she thought we were coming the following day so had gone wihout us. Hotel staff were very helpful and gave a written map to the taxi driver and he got lost too but we eventually arrived at the Little Wonder cafe to meet friends who welcomed us like long-lost family. Green tea and homemade cakes were served and we talked about football and Bowie. We handed over gifts of Bowie CDs and DVDs and other memorabilia and were given some more cake to take away. I had to show my tattoo and some people even took photo of it !

We got a lift back to the city centre and went to Tower Records to get football tickets and CDs. Went into huge underground shopping city to in a cafe to get onomikayake - a speciality of Osaka. We eventually found somewhere and had a delicious meal of a sort of pancake fried with bacon, cabbage, leeks, prawns and noodles. On the way out Sarah managed to trigger the emergency alarm in the Japanese-style toilet by pressing the wrong button; she thought it was the flush! Spent some time wandering around in a ginormous underground shopping centre full of clothes and cosmetic shops as well as many different types of eatery. We were quite relieved to come up for air after a while.