Avalon

Japan Adventure Part 5-Osaka

Saturday, August 16, 2008

In the morning of Day 6, we continued our discovery of Koyasan, which was perpetually shrouded by an aura of calmness and zen, owing quite abit to the many magnificent temples that enhances its charm. Not only do the temples look slightly different from its Chinese counterparts, temples there are constructed to worship Shingon Buddhism.

Konpondaito Pagoda

Some temples here charge an admission fee, so we didn't really went into each one.

A morning view of the entrance of the Shukubo we stayed at.

The corridor...

And soon, before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to Koyasan. While we were taking the cable car down, we saw another coming up and it was loaded full of tourists. We were so glad we chose a right day to visit.

We took the train all the way back to Osaka and started out tour in the afternoon. The main tourist highlight we went to was the Osaka Castle. Just tracking from our Weekly Mansion unit (Vietnam gang, it's something like Frasers but less grand, more homely) to the park surrounding the castle (it has 3 moats..) so it was something like a pilgrimage.

After that, we decided to do a little bit of shopping (we finally went back to the city) at Shinsaibashi. 心斎橋 and since it was a Saturday, EVERYWHERE was crowded and it was super hard looking for food around dinner time. After turning many many rounds in the hope of making sure that we were really hungry, we finally made a stop at this restaurant and got this.

The next day was spent in the areas around Shinsaibashi as well..

YEAH to the Okonomiyaki お好み焼き we had for lunch before leaving Osaka for Tokyo. Yes we merely stayed at Osaka for one and a half day and I didn't take too many pictures because most of the time we were just shopping. And I conclude that the clothes shop we visited the most throughout this trip was Uniqlo.

It was super hot there in Osaka and we almost melted, but Osaka is indeed a good place for shopping and just experiencing the urban lifestyle of the Japanese. Tourists are relatively easy to spot amongst the crowd as well, unlike some places we went to previously which had a lesser volume of foreigners. And this ends our first week in Japan and we spent the whole of week 2 checking out Tokyo, but that will be left to the next entry. (although I realise this trip is running up quite a few entries to date) On a side note, I tried to enjoy my last trip on the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo (about 3 hours) but was disturbed either by children who tapped on the back of my seat or passengers in front of my seat who lowered their seats to the maximum, leaving me with discounted space. What a way to end the first week...

Envoy of the Stars @ 2:47 PM
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