Twas another sunny day, as it was to be one of our last days in Tokyo, and we were to get the Shinkansen to Osaka, our next residence for the next week.
After packing our bags and quickly cleaning up the apartment in Okachimachi, we headed out to the station for the very last time, with our suitcases in hand with mine still missing a wheel being almost impossible to drag along. We hopped on a train for Tokyo station, where we tried to reserve seats at the ticket office for the next Hikari to Osaka but the line ended up taking too long so we ended up just lining up with the herds and luckily managed to grab two 3 seaters for the long ride to Osaka. I remember grabbing a timetable and realizing that we had some time at Maibara station so I quickly ran out of the train to buy a quick drink from the vending machine.
Once we had arrived at Osaka three hours later, we walked around aimlessly until we eventually found the lockers to put our baggage in, costing 500 yen each. The way its done is one where the key just sits in the keyhole so you just pay and take the key. Trustworthiness op. We hadn’t eaten the whole morning, so we wondered around Shin-Osaka station until we had found a Okonomiyaki place to eat, of which we very quickly and readily consumed. Once we had finished our food, which was a cabbage omlette sorta thing with spaghetti and a bunch of sauces, served on a hot plate which we didn’t know how to use or say, so they just gave it to us already cooked.
We had originally planned to check out the stuff in and around Osaka, but we instead decided that it would be a bit boring, and headed off to Kyoto instead where we could save a day or two later on. We hopped on the Special Rapid train for Kyoto, which was the quickest way there aside from the occasional Shinkansen. From there, we got a train to Gion station and walked around the district, which didn’t look overly spectacular to be honest, maybe since we had seen more around prior.
Eventually we walked towards Kiyo-Mizudera temple where we were met with a whole truckload of Chinese/Korean tourists, making it impossible to take a good photo or anything.
Once we had walked around for like 15 or 30 minutes, and Daniel and Nathan joined the massive queue to like drink the water comin outta that tank, and Nathan got asked to take a photo for someone on the way out, we headed towards the station where we got a train to Fushimi Inari, and along the way walked through the “Gion” District which was kind of a let down.
We then left for a train to Fushimi Inari, in which we had to change trains at some station which I can’t remember. After getting to the station, we walked for about 10 minutes before arriving at the bottom of the shrine.
There were a bunch of stalls selling stuff, but only the Takoyaki one was open since it was like 4-5pm, we decided to try it. Being one of the last ones left, we only got 5 instead of 6 but whatevz. It was totally different to the stuff we have here, and was ridiculously hot, almost painful than delicious. The old pre-shrine entering ritual was done, and we headed into the long walk up the almost entire Fushimi Inari.
On the way to the top, it was slowly getting dark as we walked through the thousands of Torii gates. One point we got distracted by a bunch of cats, but we eventually walked through the shrine for about an hour before we were greeted with a view over Kyoto.
After the view, there was still about an half an hour or something til we got to the top, but by the time we got there it was pretty much dark. Although I gotta say, even being there day and night made it an experience of it’s own, with the path being lit by various lanterns and candles. Not to mention the fact that we could hardly see anything.
On the way back down, we bumped into a random asian dude who had separated from his mates and talked to him for a bit in broken awk AF mandarin, as we spent the rest of the time just scaring each other and stuff down the stairs back to the bottom.
We got the train back to Shin-Osaka station, grabbed our luggage and took the Hankyu Railway to Juso station where we checked into our little AirBnB apartment with the scary lift.
Overall, pretty decent day out, just too many DAMN people and nothing new. Almost felt like we’d been living in Japan at this point.
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