As soon as I arrived in Osaka, I pitched my tent. From the riverbank campsite you can see the whole of central Osaka, and it's a different sight from anywhere I've camped so far, so I really like it. Right next to the campsite there were hundreds of people having barbecues, and it looked like fun. There were no showers at the riverbank, so I went to an internet café and had a shower there. I'd never been to that kind of internet café before, so it was an interesting experience. You pay an entry fee, and then you can have loads of drinks for free and read comics and manga too. I couldn't download Sun-Ken Rock in the UK, so I read it for about 30 minutes.

It was fun, but there were lots of porn magazines lined up on the shelves. I suddenly noticed when I went to the toilet, and it was filthy. Do people really wank in cafés like this? It was like a lads' dorm. As a café it's fine, but how it gets used is the problem. I also wrote some job application emails.

Today's local specialities were takoyaki, Osaka tsubuan, and okonomiyaki. They were all incredibly good. The octopus in the takoyaki was bigger than I'd expected, and, obviously, it was far tastier than the frozen kind in the UK.

The day before yesterday, I met a man called Toshihiko-san outside a convenience store. We chatted a bit and swapped Instagram accounts. He was in Osaka on the same day too, so I went to meet him in Nishinari Ward. I couldn't find him at first, and I ended up talking to the lady at an izakaya I'd stopped at. She's Chinese, but she's lived in Japan for thirty years, so I had no idea she was Chinese until she told me.

After that I went to the izakaya where Toshihiko-san was, had a few drinks, and did karaoke too. I can't sing at all, but it was fun.

Later we talked about public safety in Japan. I was told that Nishinari Ward has the worst public safety and is "the bottom". Even so, it was really interesting and fun. It's become economically poor, and apparently they're lowering the consumption tax to improve the economic situation. I was also told that vending machines are really cheap in areas with poor public safety. In Nishinari, almost everything in the vending machines was 50 yen! In British pounds that's about 27p! After the izakaya, we bought 50-yen coffees and drank them together. Toshihiko-san is really wise and a good person. He taught me about Buddhism too. He also talked about his ancestors. He said they were samurai. For sightseeing, he also recommended a samurai temple in Kyoto called Ōishi-dera.

I only rode 28 km this morning, so I wanted to take a half-day rest, but I rode 20 km while I was in Osaka! Even so, I didn't have my luggage, so it was comparatively easy.