Sixth Full Day in Japan.

Travel Blog 2 Minutes

Today we did a day trip to Osaka. The public transit in Japan is world class. There is a subway station a block from our hotel. We rode the subway to the main train station in Kyoto and then took a train to Osaka. The whole trip took about forty-five minutes. When we got to Osaka we walked over to the Osaka Castle.

In the foreground you can see the wall of the castle. In the background you can see the top floors of the castle.
This is the Osaka Castle. It is a history museum and has seven floors, each dedicated to an era in the long history of Osaka’s role in the history of Japan.

We spent the morning exploring this beautiful museum and learning a great deal about the history of Japan. Civil war and conflict between regions and clans has been a hallmark of Japanese history and culture for thousands of years.

After we finished exploring the museum we walked to the Kurimon Ichiba Market for lunch.

This is the Kurimon Ichiba Market. This long alley is lined with small shops selling delicious small bites.
Octopus balls. Not what you might be thinking. Octopus don’t have balls like Rocky Mountain oysters. Octopus balls are dough mixed with octopus and then fried. They were delicious. I also had an order of dumplings.
Flower stall at the market.
This is my father, Bob Hansen. He spent a year in Korea during the Korean War and two weeks of that year in Tokyo on R&R. He stayed with a family while he was in Tokyo. He somehow figured out that Japanese women love flowers. So he showed up at the front door of his host family’s house with a massive bouquet of flowers. He was treated like royalty during his two weeks in Japan. My father was very smart and had a very high EQ. He loved people and everyone loved him. I miss him every day.

After lunch we walked over to the Shinto-ji Temple.

Part of the temple complex.
This is a pagoda at the temple complex. We climbed up the stairs to the top floor in our stocking feet. No shoes allowed in a pagoda. There was an overweight and out of shape guy at the top who seemed to be in some distress after climbing the five flights of stairs to get to the top floor. I hope he got down without having a heart attack.
There is a river walk in Osaka, kinda like the one in San Antonio.
Ferris wheel on the river walk with people inside those round pods.

Dinner tonight was Italian.

On the left, white asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. On the right, burrata cheese and tomatoes.
Pasta with a sauce made of veal and gorgonzolla cheese.
Blood orange sorbet. The menu said gelato but it was sorbet.

That’s it from Kyoto. I hope you are having a great day wherever you are.

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Published by abeandmarkonthecamino

I've been retired from the Union Pacific Railroad since 2017. I've been planning to walk the Camino for about 6 months and can't wait to get started.

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