Day 54 - Laura's Departure

Today was mostly spent trying to make Laura feel better about going back to Burnley, even if it is only for a few weeks (phase one of this was watching Love Actually last night - chosen partly for the joyous scenes at Heathrow, I'm sure). We went for an awesome Mexican lunch in Shinsaibashi, at a place called El Pancho - it turned out to be happy hour as well, with half-price margaritas, which helped to cheer us all up a little, I must say. We then went to try and find the Umeda Million Candle Festival, which I had read about in a magazine on saturday night - on arrival at Umeda station, everyone turned to me for directions, meaning I had to confess that not only did I not know how to get there, I also didn't know where it was. Eventually, after nearly giving up a few times, we found the area the festival was in. I had read that for two hours, the streets were to be lit by candles, as all the shops and offices turned out their lights, unheard of in such a neon-filled city as this. What actually happened is that there was one street, and a small square, which was filled with candles - in jars lining the road, inside decorated shopping bags and laid out on the floor in coloured patterns. Not too discouraged, we waited until the big switch-off was to take place, and I must say it was pretty rubbish. Starbucks and Tulley's Coffee, which have huge glass windows and were on either side of the main display, left all their lights on, as did all the shops along the street. All that was turned off was the streetlights and christmas decorations, which were the nicest things to look at anyway. We rushed to Namba, the other end of town, to get her on her bus in time, only to find that she had to change buses in Umeda anyway, meaning we could have avoided our frantic(ish) dash across the city. So, not the best send off for Laura. As she left she bid "Goodbye my Osakan Family (and Eric?)", meaning Les, Bill, and Myself. I felt quite honoured, and I'll miss her. I hope she can find a job in Korea too, and soon - the only one available in Burnley is apparently being one of Santa's elves. Seriously.