Kyoto photo call

This is the Osaka sunset. The road looks fairly ugly (Ian, do you recognise Sakai City? Which area did you live in? Rachel is very curious.), but the sky was stunning. The picture doesn't do it justice. Japan is stunning in December - there are so few clouds, the Japanese themselves are fairly bored of the sunsets that blow my mind. This is only two minutes from Rachel's house. At the moment, there are some rare clouds over Osaka and from Rachel's balcony, I can see a huge shadow over the city, almost stretching to Kobe, which you can see in the distance.

Below is a view near Umeda (I am not sure if this actually counts as Umeda or is still the business district, Rachel is lunching with a colleague and so not here to ask) - central Osaka. Until we reached Kyoto, I thought this was my favourite part of Japan. It has such a range of architectural styles that it feels like a British or American city (not having been, Rachel and I decided upon Washington).

We spent Monday wandering around Osaka spending money we don't really have (when you can pick up scatter cushions at £2.50 a pop who can say no?) and revelling in a small level of anonymity. Being gaijin in Omiya, I stand out and feel very self-conscious, as does Rachel in Sakai. We are far from rareties, but still are likely to be remembered should we do anything stupid or embarrassing. That said, I am bound to run into someone who recognises me from our taking photos of ourselves in over-sized hats.

I got to sample a local delicacy (though as it was Boxing Day, I was the one who was delicate): takuyaki, a small, hot ball of squid encased in under-cooked Yorkshire pudding batter and coated with a sweet, spicy sauce. As I was nursing a Christmas hangover, the burning ball of slimy goo was not all that welcome, in spite of being enormously tasty. Most Japanese expect the octopus to be the issue for over-sensitive foreigners, but it is their continued insistence on under-cooking that causes me more concern. Textures of foods here are often bizarre and unnatural to a meat and two veg kind of a girl.

After walking the length of the business district, we took tea in Hankyu, an enormous department store with allegiance to a local sports` team (either baseball or football, I forget which) which pushes the opposing team's fans into the rival store. I also lazily found myself having purchased an over-priced pair of green over-the-knee socks. The Japanese love of labels and my unwillingness to check the price caught me out badly. Still, they are Max Mara and I am sure Takashi-san will approve when I wear them for our next lesson. I also got some pretty hot and fairly reasonable ankle warmers.

We strolled around the city for a little while and tried to find sausages to accompany Rachel's mash, but I got distracted by a pet store and dragged her in. We spent a good forty minutes trying to get a decent picture of these two and man-handling them and anyone else with an open cage. We noticed that a young man in his 20s and a 'respectable' salaryman had the same idea and loafed around the shop with no direction for at least as long as us. I tried to devise a way of starting a conversation with the salaryman and prompting him into buying me this beautiful cat, but even at my most delusional I knew it would be impossible - cats here cost almost as much as my monthly salary. This one, however, was reasonably cheap - only £150. We were enjoying the surroundings until Rachel discovered the more obscure pets at the back of the store. I was quite taken with the goat - it was certainly better nourished than most of the dogs - but the two caged monkeys were incredibly distressing. Although caged, both were also chained by the neck. One had lulled into a depressive silence, while the other bounced in a seriously crazed way and we had to leave the shop. It should not have a surprised us. Human rights are barely recognised, pets are far, far behind (though perhaps still a little higher up the food chain than the Chinese and Koreans). I have seen one campaigner in Omiya who keeps a cat in a small cat while demanding donations, not quite understanding the RSPCC's stance on such things.