eve

Our second day in Osaka started started with a trip to the world famous Mr. doughnut. I would be lying if I said this was our first time here.

With some sugar in our belly’s we headed to the falling water clock at Osaka station. I am not sure how famous this thing is but I think its one of the more interesting features of the central train station. Its hard to explain what exactly it is so I have this handy video to fill you in. Kim decided the best time to take the video was when every delivery man in Japan was en route.

After the fascinating water show we took the train to Osaka castle. The castle was closed due to the proximity of the new years holiday but fortunately the surrounding park was still open. This was not a huge loss being that the inside of the castle is a modern museum lacking any cultural significance other than the fact it is a museum. Most historic buildings in Japan have been burnt down multiple times so in most cases what you see is not exactly the original build. None the less the view from the outside was impressive.

After walking in the park we headed to one of my favorite restaurants in Japan. They specialize in a unique tomato based ramen. Last time I just got the house specialty but this time I ordered the arabian version which featured a spicy broth and exotic veggies. It was quite tasty but it had a lot of this unidentifiable root vegetable with holes in it that I was not too fond of. Kim ordered the same thing and was not a fan of the mystery ingredient either. All things considered it was still delicious.

With lunch out of the way it was time to head to Nara to celebrate the new years countdown. The trip ove was not long but finding the right train turned out to be a bit confusing.

We ended up on a train to Nara but we quickly found it out that was not supported by our rail pass. On top of that it was a reserve train so we had to pay double the fare for the seats. I was not too happy with how this turned out but we made it into town which was the important part.

Finding the hostel wasn’t too bad but we arrived 15 minutes early so we waited on a bench just outside the main door. Eventually the hostel employees ventured out but didn’t see us and got quite the scare as they passed us. Its always helpful to leave a good impression.

In reality the hostel is an old Japanese house that the owners rent rooms out of. Our room was a very nice traditional Japanese room with a sitting porch which overlooked the central garden.

After settling in we toured the town while looking for somewhere to have dinner. New years is the largest holiday in Japan so suffice it to say most restaurants were closed on the eve. We managed to find a Japanese/Indian hybrid restaurant that was still open. No photos of this meal were captured so I will leave you with this accurate interpretation.

All fueled up we headed back to the hostel to relax before our big night out.

Observing Osaka

We arrived in Osaka around dinner time and had no trouble finding the hostel. I had stayed there before and my memory kicked in as we exited the train station. It is located in a hip area called Fukushima. We checked in and went on the hunt for some food.

Across the street there was a teppanyaki place that eventually lured us in.

We totally forgot to photograph most of the meal but it was absolutely delicious.

The next day we made our way across town to the Osaka aquarium. I think this could be my favorite aquarium I have ever been to, Kim seemed to also enjoy it. The only issue was it was absolutely packed. We were shoulder to shoulder with people the entire time fighting for viewing position.

Having a hard time escaping these little guys

Afterwords we grabbed some okonomiyaki at a nearby food stall.

And then caught a ride on the nearby giant ferris wheel. They have these in every city (Osaka has 3!). I an not sure why they are so popular, but the view was nice.

We headed back to the hostel for some rest before we hit the town later in the evening. After some rest we headed to the train station and rode to one of the famous downtown districts.

Osaka is famous for its takoyaki so we decided to grab an order while looking for dinner.

We wondered down a number of quiet streets and finally decided on a small yakisoba restaurant. We ordered pork with farm fresh egg and pork yakisoba. It was once again delicious.

It was then back to the main shopping area which was horribly crowded. Where do all these people keep coming from?

We ended the night playing bomberman at a local bar that featured retro gaming. It was full of douchey expats who were trying to prove to everyone else in the bar how Japanese they are now. It was annoying but easy to forget with beer and video games in front of us.

Almost forgot our late night snack, authentic Japanese sweets.

Browsing Kyoto

Two days before leaving Portland my fight schedule changed. This left me with an hour and 20 minutes to clear customs/immigration, get my Japan Rail pass, and catch the last train to Kyoto. Kim was to land earlier than me and we were to meet at the JR exchange office. With the new time constraints there was a strong chance we would be spending the night in Tokyo. My flight was uneventful but these are the times when I prefer uneventful.

I was fortunate enough to be in the front end of the plane which allowed me to clear both customs and immigration in only 30 minutes. Kim had already obtained a spot in the rail pass line saving us some much needed time. With all of these factors we were able to catch the last train with a few minutes to spare.

Groggy and disoriented we stepped off the train and into Kyoto station. Our hotel had step by step directions with photos which made it easy to find. We climbed up to our room and retired for the night in our bed cave.

The next day we ventured over to Kiyomizu Temple. In addition to the collection of beautiful buildings the top features a nice view of Kyoto.

At the main temple we received fortunes and tied them to the temples fortune rack so that they would come true. As I can no longer read most Kanji we had no idea our fortunes were, but we posted them anyway. Fingers crossed.

After the climb we decided to try the local fare. We went with the crepe with hot dog, pizza sauce, and cheese. You could really taste the Asian influence in this dish.

(Note, you may recognize this photo. I took one from the same shop on my last trip to Japan)

Our next stop was the geisha district to see if we could find a genuine geisha. This is about the best we came up with (and no, these women are not geisha).

We ended our day wondering around a local market looking at the various goods.

The next morning we hopped on our bikes and headed to Fushimi Inari Shrine. This shrine is located on a mountain and is filled with thousands of orange gates and fox statues. There are also a number of people living on the mountain that operate various shops.

We hiked all the way to the top and were greeted with a light dusting of snow.

After visiting the temple at the highest point we made our way back down the mountain. At the bottom there were all sorts of street food options to choose from. We went for the roasted quail on a stick. They were nice enough to stick the skewer through his eye socket.

We got back on our bikes and made our way to the other side of town to visit the famous Golden Pavilion of Kyoto. It was still daylight so the views were quite nice.

It was quite crowded but we managed to get some good shots. We had been hiking and biking all day so we decided to head back to the hostel. On the way back we decided to stop at the Kyoto palace. We knew it was closed but we didn’t know how closed it really was. It turned out you could not even see inside from outside of the gate. We were super excited to pass by all of the closed gates.

We headed back to the hostel quite exhausted. By the end of the day we had biked through a large portion of Kyoto. All in all we peddled around 20 km. With that our time in Kyoto has come to an end. We will be taking a train to Osaka later tonight, until then.