The Weeding and Osaka Part Two

The wedding was scheduled to start at 11am, so naturally, we all got up really early and arrived at the church an hour beforehand. On the way, we stopped off at a store to get some fruit for the man whose apartment we'd stayed in by way of a thank you. Amy and Nam got it for him and settled on a melon, they also bought some fruit for the wedding party.

Well, what a day. To preface this, we were attending the Weeding (see the programme pictured above - I had to have a stifled giggle) of Nam's friends, who are Vietnamese but attend a Korean Christian church in Japan. So the day was a mix of Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese discussions, sermons and conversations. When we arrived, I caught a glimpse of the bride in her dress and she was stunning. Since I didn't know the bride and groom, and also because stood out quite a lot as one of the only foreigners there, I didn't take any photo's but you'll have to take my word for it. The dress was beautiful.

Amy and I went with Nam to the kitchen to help prepare however I mainly stood around for a few short minutes before we were ushered back out again to sit down in the church. Not before a short, elderly Japanese lady started enthusiastically clapping her hands when she saw me. She asked me where I was from and when I said England she did an excited little jump and clapped more. I can honestly say, that's the best reaction I've ever had from walking into a room.

Everywhere Amy and I tried to go, we were ushered back to our seats in the church. We wanted to help or at least meander around until the ceremony, so we kept sneaking back out like naughty children. We saw the man who put us up in his apartment but at this point, we'd misplaced the melon. It had been taken out of the car because it was such a hot day and we were pretty sure it had found it's way to the kitchen but we couldn't physically get near so we ended up having to avoid our host until we could lay our hands on it.

I remember walking down a corridor with Amy, after having been turned away from the kitchen again, and having had such a confusing morning that I'd summed it up "We're at a wedding for a Vietnamese couple, in a Korean Christian church, where everyone is speaking Japanese and Vietnamese and occasionally Korean, they all want us to go and sit down...AND we've lost the melon!" - we were in hysterics. I wasn't sure why, but summing up the whole thing was so funny and I knew I shouldn't be crying laughing in the church, which only made it worse!

Finally, I calmed myself down enough to sit quietly in the church until the wedding started. It was odd being at a strangers wedding, but I enjoyed it. After the service, they put food out on tables in the church and their friends,  family and colleagues gave speeches to the bridge and groom. It was during this time that their friends sang with them and one of the groom's colleagues sang 'Your Song' and actually resembled a Japanese Elton John - so he is now affectionately referred to as Elton Nihon (Nihon is the Japanese word for Japan).

When we could, Amy and I made good our escape to go and visit the castle. It was a really hot day and I was actually really pleased I'd worn a dress to the wedding as it kept me nice and cool as we explored the castle.

Inside the grounds, there were some men with exotic animals and birds. There was a cute owl, so we both went and took pictures with it which was really cool. When we turned around, we found a samurai dress-up area and Amy and I couldn't resist. Here are some pictures:

 {The moat was a little overgrown on one side... but on the other side...}

Continuing the food blog aspect from earlier posts, here is a selection of foods we sampled that day...

{Some of the first western food I've had here. The pizza was a pastry pizza - not sure why they did this but it was pretty nice!}

{Guess which desert was mine? 😉}

And just like that, the weekend was over. It was time to return home and I was not ready for it to be over. But I did have a really good sleep in the car on the way back. We stopped at a rest stop and Amy pointed out some Tanuki for you all.

And with these lovable, hat-wearing, sake-drinking Tanuki, I bring this Osaka trip post to a close. What a ride!