b – wen – star

Not leaving our hotel room until well past midday we didn’t get to go to as many places as compared to yesterday. We only went out to grab a bite to each and visit the Parco department store. We found a record store which had quite a few music fliers about what was on for New Years but we’re a bit undecided if we want to go to a night time festival the day before we fly out and also tickets are also quite expensive.

Above shows the local French-style bakery that we have been visiting most mornings whilst we have been in Shibuya. Prices are reasonable and the food is freshly made right before your eyes so it’s been a very busy place even with the locals. The next picture shows the directory of probably one of the biggest shopping centres in Shibuya with five different towers each dedicated to something different and one of those towers is a 9 level car park.

We had a small rest before catching a train to Kawasaki so we could meet up with Ayumi for dinner. Catching two different trains to get there we met up with her quite easily despite not having a phone and just based it on directions we talked about the day before. We had to catch another little train before we could walk to Ayumi’s place. Whilst reaching the last train station we waited for her university friend to also join us for dinner.

We arrived and met her mum who was very welcoming and had already prepared a traditional Japanese dinner for us and there was a lot of preparation involved, we offered to help but she insisted that as guests we should just relax. For dinner she whipped up a small avocado salad for entree and then a traditional Japanese hotpot with a range of new ingredients that we haven’t eaten before such as Japanese beef and Japanese potato. It has been the best meal we’ve had on our trip and it wasn’t something you could buy in the shops. Dessert involved just fresh fruit such as pineapple and strawberries, keeping in mind strawberries in Japan can fetch up to $3-4 AUD each!

After dinner we sat around and had a nice chat just about different Japanese and Australian traditions while her mum cleaned up. The plan after dinner was to get Chloe fitted into a kimono but little did we know how difficult it is to actually wear one. The person who fits a kimono to the girl has to be trained how to do it and classes are required. It’s not something that can be simply worn, it’s basically an art. Ayumi’s mum is still learning so she was happy to try out her skills on Chloe.

The pictures just give a rough idea how the kimono is worn, the undergarment kimono wasn’t worn because it’s quite personal and the bow strap was not completely done up as it can take a long time and might wrinkle.

Pictures above need no caption and the last picture is the very famous intersection at Shibuya and what it looks like at 10pm at night.

The plan today was to meet up with our only known Japanese friend who is also Chloe’s exchange student back in high school, we met up with Ayumi at Hachiko and after immediate hugs and welcomes we caught a couple trains to Yokohama where she was going to show us around and see some attractions. Upon reaching the Yokohama train station we realised how busy it was as Ayumi mentioned it was the second most busy city in Tokyo. We eventually made way through the crowds of people and headed to the shopping centre that was connected to the train station because we were waiting for one of her best friends to also come meet us.

The train we caught to Yokohama with some carriages being two-tiered and a view of one of the streets in Yokohama.

We eventually met up with her friend Natsumi who didn’t speak English as well as Ayumi did but enough to make limited conversation with us whom I found hilarious. We grabbed lunch at a little Japanese restaurant and left them with their best judgement to order for us, I ended up with Unagi (Eel) and Chloe ended up with tempura vegetables and prawn.

We were chatting during lunch about sticker photos and if we liked taking them or not. Chloe and I laughed as that was something she did as a kid and something I have not really liked personally. The girls lead us to a local gaming place which has a sticker photo booth level upstairs and was a main attraction for young females. I took part in one photo but then proceeded to go downstairs and play some more skill tester games while the girls did their thing.

We headed back to the train station to catch a quick train to Minato Mirai. This was where most Japanese would come to sight see or just hang out, much like our version of South Bank. We had no idea about this place as it wasn’t in our Tokyo tour guide that we picked up at the Osaka train station which we had been using for the majority of our Tokyo trip. This place has the tallest tower, biggest ferris wheel in Japan and is considered the port of Tokyo as the Bay bridge connects Yokohama to Tokyo is also located there. We were planning to do a walk down the bridge to give a good view but it was simply too cold with the ocean winds.

Just arriving in Minato Mirai and crossing the bridge over to the port of Yokohama.

We took a rest in the Aka-Renga Soko because the girls wore heels and they needed a bit of a rest. We stopped at a green tea restaurant which is a big thing in Japan, everyone loves green tea and green tea flavoured sweets such as cake and biscuits. I wasn’t really a fan of green tea before coming to Japan but basically with every meal there seems to be a cup of warm green tea accompanying it so it’s something I have accustomed to love I guess.

Walking towards the Aka-Renga Soko and Ayumi deciding what to order.

The group and the sunset that was slowly coming over.

More photos and sight seeing was done before we moved onto Yokohama Cosmoworld which had attractions such as their ferris wheel, roller coasters and plenty more games and rides. We went on the ferris wheel for an aerial view of the city which went for 15 minutes and had an inbuilt audio tour of the city. It was a bonus that we caught the ride during the sunset so it was amazing.

The girls lining up for the ferris wheel and them on the ferris wheel.

We were getting a bit tired as it was getting late so we went to a local shop to have a seat and rest our feet a bit. We waited a while for a friend of Natsumi to meet us at the train station to join us for dinner, fighting through the mass amount of people during peak hour and also today being the last official working day as holidays start tomorrow till the 3rd of January, we met up with ‘Lee’. Well she introduced herself to us as Lee because her Japanese name was a bit difficult for us to pronounce and understand much like they had the difficulty of pronouncing Brendan.

Yokohama Landmark Tower from the ferris wheel, which is also the tallest tower in Japan and a view of the ferris wheel as we were leaving.

Walking back down the side streets of Yokohama to look for a special type of restaurant (the name alludes me at the moment but it has a specific name for it’s type of food and atmosphere mainly directed at university students as it is quite cheap) being the last day of work it was packed. We had trouble finding a place that could fit us five without too much of a long wait. Luckily we were able to find a place I think because the girls knew one of the waitresses there. We caught a lift upstairs to find out how actually packed it is, we were soon escorted to our booth where we ordered plenty of drinks and food. Throughout the night we tried lots of different Japanese style drinks and eating different foods such as octopus and at the end of the night the bill wasn’t as big as it should be because of the connections our friends had. Turned out to be a very good night.

Goodbyes were said and we caught the train back to Shibuya and headed to bed at 10pm and didn’t wake up till midday the next day. We bought a train ticket and caught a direct train back to Shibuya instead of two connecting trains so it was easier but left us at a different train platform, which makes things a lot harder. We eventually made it outside and our way home through the blisteringly cold weather. Our plans tomorrow were to do a bit a shopping and visit the Onitsuka Tiger store then head to Kawasaki to have dinner with Ayumi’s mum.

We a decent night sleep because of the better bed and pillows than our previous hotel, not to mention a larger bed. I think the reason why the bed was so small in the previous hotel was because we were initially booked into a smoking room but we wanted non-smoking so we got a smaller bed in the new room. We grabbed a bit of breakfast from a neighbouring shopping complex and then headed to the train station as we wanted to head back to Akihabara and check out some more shops.

We are experts at using the train system by now so we got to Akinhabara in no time.

This was the train system when it’s not packed! Also the countless amount of maids that hand out fliers. They are everywhere and they promote bars and coffee shops which have waitresses that dress in all different type of uniforms and serve you.

We then headed to the Akihabara Yodobashi to play around with their cameras before we went anywhere. It’s such a great place because they literally have every camera for sale and they are all working so you can have a decent play around with them. We didn’t buy anything except for a couple pens as they were self-erasable.

Making our way through the side streets a bit more during the day was better than at night time in my opinion. The stores and streets are less crowded and you can actually judge where you are and see if you have retraced your steps or not or if you have been in that store before. At night store after store starts looking the same after you have been walking around for the past few hours.

A shop that sold heaps of second hand gaming machines and games. That Nintendo Gamecube was only about $15 with controllers and power cables. I was very very close to buying one. I had a talk to the shop owner about getting it to work in Australia and all but the only thing that stopped me was that it could only play Japanese games so the language barrier would have been a problem. Me and him were having complicated discussion as we were both having trouble asking and answer questions to each other. Super Nintendo games were 30 cents or so which were ridiculous cheap! But I remembered that Japanese SNES games do not work on an Australian Super Nintendo.

We have been looking for something to eat and found this nice little sushi train. This was the first decently priced sushi train that we have seen in Japan. What we came to realise in Japan is that sushi only involves raw fish (with the exception of things such as egg) with rice. That’s what makes it sushi, the things we have in Australia such as prawn tempura, cooked tuna etc. are a western thing and doesn’t exist in Japan. Secondly they don’t have hand rolls, it’s either a ship base which is the topping on the rice ball or a triangle which is a ball of rice shaped in a triangle with filling inside, it can be eaten either hot or cold. It’s different but it’s a nice change.

This sushi train had a nice feel, the chefs were very friendly and constantly making fresh sushi, though there was a lot of raw fish and we were a bit scared of getting sick, they were getting eaten so fast that they would only be on the train for a very short period of time anyway. The large tap you see in the photo below is your own hot water and you add green tea yourself so you can adjust how bitter you want the tea and how much you want, which I think is a very cool idea.

Above shows the Maid coffee shop that I was explaining above and us at Sushi train.

We caught the train back home and grabbed some dinner, it started to rain so we decided to have a quiet night in not to mention that there was a concert (I think) relatively close to our hotel so there were thousands of teenagers coming down the main strip dressed in odd clothes.

We were out of our hotel room before 10am so we could catch the free shuttle bus to the train station, only realising it was Monday when we got there the amount of people going to work was insane, lugging a big backpack with a snowboard did attract quite a bit of attention from business men and women but more importantly I did have quite a bit of trouble getting into the sardine-canned-trains without hitting too many people around me.

Getting out of the train station and looking at the station directory it made me even more confused, who designs a map with North facing South-West? It’s just stupid, it made me take the wrong exit and end up at the opposite side of the train station. Eventually we got out, trust me it’s harder than you think when there are people pushing and shoving everywhere rushing to work, and finally we got to the popular meeting point which is famous supposedly. It’s called the Hachiko which is the dog statue in front of the famous street crossing.

The infamous Shibuya crossing.

We arrived at the hotel way before check in so we decided to go shopping a bit and went to the Disney store where I took the picture above. Besides for more street wandering around Shibuya we didn’t get up to anything too exciting as we were still a bit tired so we decided to have a quiet one.

Today was scheduled for us to visit Harajuku as Sunday is when most of the markets and ‘odd’ people come out in costume and dress up. Even for a Sunday the trains were full, though today was boxing day I don’t think that changed the fact that there were still people in business suits and school uniforms.

Getting off at Harajuku station was manic, there were people everywhere and there was very little room to breathe. We were just following the crowd as we couldn’t see through the crowds of people. Just outside the train station we had already started to see people wearing outrageous costumes who were being photographed by tourists. We followed the crowd of people across the road as we had no idea where to go and as we got to the top of the overpass bridge we saw a ridiculous amount of people.

Click the right picture to enlarge and see the vast amount of people.

99% were females waiting to line up for a Korean all-boy-pop-band concert which is the first in Tokyo, we left in shock at the amount of people that were still flocking to line up at the stadium.

As soon as we hit the city center it had a very different feel to what Shinjuku has to offer. It reminds me of Paddington or West End back in Brisbane, with stalls and small boutique shops in side streets and alley ways. Each shop had different stock from the last and most of the items were hand made by the shop owners or redesigned somehow. Many of the shops had very affordable items which attracted a lot of tourists coming to shop and to sight see.

My camera was running out of batteries so I couldn’t have taken as many photos as I wanted.

Though there was an abundance of little shops, the big luxury ones such as Chanel, LV etc. were still present with the appearance from Ferraris for the first time I’ve seen in Japan. Besides for shopping there wasn’t much in Harajuku that interested me so we decided to head home, grab some rest and get some dinner back in Shinjuku as it is our last night there before heading to Shibuya tomorrow morning.

Even though it’s Christmas the streets were full of people busily going to work and heading to school. We thought it was a bit awkward given that it’s Christmas and it’s a Saturday. We caught the train to Ikebukuro in search of the former ‘biggest shopping centre in the world’. We didn’t know which one it was but we found one right next to the train station that was split up into 3 buildings each having 7-8 floors. Feeling very unimpressed as we have seen numerous LV and Chanel stores everywhere in Japan anyway we decided to catch a train to Akinhabara.

Akinhabara is known as the ‘Electric Town’. The cheapest and busiest place to get electronics in Tokyo supposedly and it was a place I have always been keen to check out since landing in Japan. It’s where you can buy new and second hand goods and from spending a good 3 hours or so in the side streets checking out discount electronics I am amazed on what you can buy and how cheap they are. They seem to get their shipments of stock at night so I’m not sure how much of this stock is stolen or obtained illegally. Doesn’t matter to us, it’s just cheap!

We only ventured out and explored a couple blocks out of the hundreds available because we were a bit tired from walking all day but I could definitely spend all day looking at stupidly priced electronics.

The city had flashing lights everywhere and there seemed to be the most amount of tourists here compared to other cities. Upon the first street store we went too we found that everything is just placed in buckets.

There were heaps of open displays for companies such as Nvidia to show off their new hardware/software, even the cold night weather didn’t deter people from shopping. It’s funny how they list their stock for sale, it’s just on shelves or hanging from the ceilings normally with a price tag and ‘Junk’ scribed on them.

Plenty of things I wanted but had no reason to buy them. For example a Nintendo 64 for 100 yen ($1.20 AUD).

Nothing too exciting but we are planning to head to Harajuku tomorrow (Sunday) which is where the obscure fashion and ‘trendy’ people like to hang out.

Another 3.5 hour train ride was on the cards to travel from Shin-Osaka to Shinagawa before we caught a transfer train to Shinjuku. The trains were busy as expected and a lot of people were giving me weird looks as I was carrying my bubble-wrapped snowboard around seeing as there were signs everywhere saying “Please report suspicious bags, items” in the trains and even in the train station.

There was suppose to be a free shuttle bus that travels from the train station to our hotel but we walked around the whole city looking for it, giving up after carrying Chloe’s luggage that made it difficult to go up and down stairs, we decided to catch a taxi which had a flat-fee anywhere in the city. Upon reaching reception and checking we only realised that the free shuttle bus doesn’t run between 12-4pm.

When checking into our room it was a tiny bit more spacious than our last but still small by Australian standards. Pretty tired from traveling since morning we decided to walk outside and check out some of the shops available as it was Christmas Eve. The shops were jam packed, we thought Christmas in Japan wouldn’t quite be as big as other western countries but we were wrong, people were in such a manic to buy last minute gifts.

One of the thousands of alleyways in Shinjuku and me eating Salmon curry (which I thought was pork from the picture) but it was delicious!

We kept walking around all the small alleyways looking for random shops and the sun started to set, we found this really lit up strip of stores which we decided to follow and it turns out it was the night life district. On the main roads were main shops but down the side streets was the red light district.

I didn’t take many photos of the red light district as I had my camera in my bag but there were heaps of men to promote the clubs rather than in Australia we have girls wearing promiscuous clothing to attract customers. This was the opposite. Every guy and girl were ridiculously dressed up even in the cold weather but I guess it is the equivalent of Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley except this had involvement of the Yakuza (Mafia).

We stopped a coffee shop to have a drink and rest our feet and check our map only to realise we have walked across the city to the eastern side which our travel guide described as “trashy”. Getting late we decided to walk back home which took over an hour. Whilst walking home we noticed quite a lot of homeless people in Shinjuku around the business district which was a first for us during the whole time we have been in Japan.

A side street with Christmas decorations and me winning a plush toy at a skill tester.

Our last full day in the south of Japan and we had dedicated this whole day to visit Hiroshima. Again we planned to get up early but the late night watching Japanese television hit us hard once again. We finally made it out to the train station to board the bullet train for the first time. Reaching speeds of 300km/h this was one of the many trains that I wanted to go on. Cutting the three hour trip in a normal ‘super rapid’ train down to an hour and a bit gives you a good idea of the speed difference.

The train cabins felt like we were in a plane as they were so spacious.

The train is so well designed that traveling at full speed feels likes 100km/h in our car, and vending machines and toilets were available on every one of the eight carriages. It only made a few stops from shin-Osaka to Hiroshima and spent a lot of it’s time in tunnels so there wasn’t too much sight seeing as I thought was available because I grabbed a window seat.

Asking a few questions on which tram and how to pay for the trams we were soon set to head to the center of the city. As soon as we got there the first thing we did was hire bicycles, only costing around $12 AUD for a whole day, the bikes were motorised too so peddling tiny inclines made it a breeze. I mapped out where to ride and where to visit before we even landed in the city so we were quickly riding away to each destination. The best things about riding a bike in Hiroshima or Japan rather is that there are literally no hills, no helmets, the footpaths are huge and you’re suppose to use your bikes on them unlike Australia.

After we picked up our bikes the first place we visited was the Former Hiroshima Municipal Baseball Stadium. It is now not used anymore but it still attracted quite a bit of attention. Around the baseball stadium was the Children’s Planetarium and the Hiroshima Green Arena.

It was a very peaceful place, we were greeted by two girls playing the guitar and singing lovely songs by the side of a few statues. The next photo shows the old baseball stadium from the Hiroshima Green Arena.

Our next route was north towards the Hiroshima Castle, getting a bit lost following my map we asked directions which lead us underground where bikes were allowed which made traveling around the city traffic-free.

We didn’t enter inside Hiroshima Castle because it was 300 yen per person for this tiny castle, instead we were just outside and explored all the parks that were around it. It attracted quite a few tourists but not as much as the next place we visited.

We retraced our path and cycled towards the A-bomb Dome. The name says it all, this was one of the buildings that is still standing after the 6th August 1945 bombing.

There were quite a few tourists and a lot of Japanese people who are obviously are not from the area having a look, taking photos and embracing in deep conversations.

We crossed the bridge over to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial the place was littered with flowers and monuments mainly invoking peace and no war.

The A-bomb dome from across the river. Next picture shows the peace flame (I think it’s called) It will only be extinguished once all nuclear weapons are disposed of in this world.

We rode around and took many more photos, it was quite a sad place but it had a good very peaceful atmosphere as everyone is just sitting around the edges just having quiet conversation with a lot of elderly coming and visiting the memorial. There was a memorial museum that we paid to enter. At only 50 yen it was an offer too good to turn down.

The tour was exceptionally well done, you basically walk through a time line of what happened and detailed images and stories about particular people and how it affected the city and the country as a whole. Many of the pictures and statues were quite graphic, I had a read and touch of most of the things on show but I think Chloe felt a bit sad walking through as most others did as well.

It was 5pm and we had to return our bikes. We walked through the streets and from what we just saw in the tour and what we’re seeing now it was amazing how they had rebuilt their city in such a short period of time. The night life was bright and alive, we honestly thought this city would be a quiet and small little place much like Brisbane but with the amount of shops and skyscrapers we were just thinking what Tokyo would be like if this was Hiroshima.

The sun was setting and I was worried we might miss the last bullet train as we didn’t have a timetable. We caught a tram back to the train station and booked our reserved seats on the bullet train. We had about half an hour to spare so we just walked around and bought snacks. We decided to head up to the train platform early and wait for our train, upon reaching the top we saw a bullet train marked for Shin-Osaka. We quickly ran on as the doors closed and sat in our seats, talking amongst each other saying how lucky we were to even get on this train and critising the ticket office for giving us the wrong time.

The train left and oddly it moved quite slowly and bumpy. The ticket inspector came past and inspected our tickets only to explain to us in very little English that we had caught a normal ‘express’ train not a bullet train. Finally realising why this train was early the bullet train that we were suppose to be on overtook us in a blink of an eye. We were okay with being on this train back home but only did we realise after the ticket inspector told us this train would take 3 hours and we wouldn’t get home till about 9:30! She told us if we got off at the next stop and waited for the next bullet train we could be home in half that time.

After more train changing and waiting in the close-to-zero degree temperature we were finally on a bullet train back to Shin-Osaka. We didn’t have a late night as we planned to catch an early train to Tokyo the next morning.

One of the many places where you order food from a vending machine and eat inside like I posted in my last blog entry. Also at McDonalds you can get a free Pokemon egg with every purchase you make (I think from what I can gather from the pictures alone)

We were planning to go to Hiroshima today but ended up waking up a bit late so we decided to head back to Osaka again. We didn’t get a chance to explore the north Kita area so we planned our route before getting on the train to save time. I saw in a travel map that there was a place called the Umeda Sky Building so we made our way there through an underground tunnel and pass the German embassy. It turns out it was either under renovations or it was a dedicated business building. A bit of a let down but we checked the map again and it showed us a few garden-sanctuary type places on either side which were worth coming for.

It was a nice bit of green in a urban-city that is so overpopulated with skyscrapers everywhere.

The garden at Shin-Umeda and the underground tunnel we needed to take to reach the Umeda Sky Building.

A couple of hours passes and we did all the sight seeing we could in Osaka. Back to the shopping we headed east to the underground shopping district (Hankyu Sambangai), less busy and less high profile shops but the atmosphere was great. Being under ground it was situated with the underground subway system so there was always quite a few people passing by I noticed that there were more elderly shoppers here not because of the shops that were on offer but it gave them a better environment to walk, shop and chat rather than in the city square which was very fast pace and very little room to move.

One of the many entrances to the underground shopping centre we visited and next door was a shopping centre with a ferris wheel on the top level.

The highlight of the day was visiting the Pokemon Centre in the Osaka train station. It actually is a Pokemon Centre where you can buy everything you can imagine with Pokemon logos on them and Pokemon merchandise. They even have a wireless Pokemon network where you can bring your Nintendo DS and trade, battle and raise your own Pokemon. I don’t have much to say about it but let me assure you it was awesome.

It was brand new so there were still some empty areas but I think the adults there outnumbered the children.

By 4:30pm our feet were sore and decided to call it a day, we caught the train back to shin-Osaka to have a couple hours rest at our hotel. In search of food for dinner we headed towards the bright lights down the end of our street to see what local meals were on offer. Walking a few trips through tiny side streets we found more love hotels than restaurants which lead me think were they actually offer prostitution or just lap dances. There were quite a few business men still in their suits entering and leaving the venues.

Most of the eateries were just ramen and rice dish dedicated places and we already had our fair share of noodles and rice for the past few days. We did try to enter this one place that didn’t speak English. As we were walking down the stairs they just kept speaking to us, we didn’t understand what they were saying so we just continued down the flight of stairs. When reaching the tables we let ourselves in before they kept saying no-no-no and pointed at our shoes. Finally understanding what they were saying to us as we walked down the stairs we removed our shoes to enter the eating area. The waiter kept saying no to us but kept looking back to his colleagues for translation help. Finally after a few minutes he finally told us, no seats. Pretty grumpy of going through the whole process and feeling a bit embarrassed they were very apologetic at the lack of communication as they kept bowing and saying sorry as we left back up the stairs.

We ended up at a Japanese burger joint as we wanted something “authentic”. Even though the burger was the size of a crumpet it was still pretty good. Another pet-hate of mine in japan is that their coke and pepsi is way to bubbly! I’m not sure if they like it like that but I guess a positive side to that is I drink lemon ice tea where ever I go.

It ended as an early night because we had a big trip of Hiroshima planned tomorrow.

Today was our planned trip to Kyoto so once again we tried to get up a bit earlier than normal to make the most of our day. We caught a ‘super rapid service’ train which only took 16 minutes. The expectations of Kyoto were what we expected, the train station wasn’t as busy in comparison to Osaka. When finally making our way outside we noticed that it was much less populated and people weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.

I think the train station just got renovated as it looks stunning both inside and out.

We were planning to visit many of the shrines and temples today and leave shopping for another day. There are hundreds of temples so we only planned to visit a few as most require a subway to get to so we chose not to go through the effort. There was one that was relatively close to the train station that was pretty large. It was getting some restorations so it was hard to really judge it’s true character.

This was the first temple we visited and the size was amazing, quite a few people came to visit and say their prayers. There was pretty strict security and no photography allowed but I managed to sneak some photos inside.

As you can see it’s currently under some renovations so a few areas were fenced off so we couldn’t take the full tour.

We made our way out and headed to the Kyoto tower. Right behind it was another Yodobashi like the one we visited in Osaka. We decided to take a visit and again it was huge like the other. It had only just recently opened so there were quite a few sales going on, which means there were heaps of people inside even on a weekday.

Kyoto tower and the store directory of Yodobashi Kyoto.

Japanese people (kids and adults) love toys and there was a whole level just dedicated to toys. I found this which I really wanted but remembered I’m not eight years old anymore.

We left and kept walking to find the next temple. Walking through the quiet roads was a nice change and actually felt a bit like Australia for a while, besides for all the Japanese vending machines everywhere.

I noticed this weird restaurant when we stopped to looked for directions. The place wasn’t open but from what I gather from the front menus it’s a place that specialises in Beef obviously but on the menu you could choose what you wanted and where the meat came from.

We made our way to the next shrine that was in walking distance and to be honest it wasn’t much different to the first one we visited. I’m sure other people could tell the slight differences but I thought we walked in a huge circle and ended up at the same place. The temple was also under renovations so that was something that confused me heaps. Either way I managed to take some nice photos even though there was still tough rules about no photos.

One more thing that I noticed about Japan is that there are no seats… anywhere! There is seriously a lack of rubbish bins and seats/benches to sit on in Japan. I made the assumption that they do not eat on the go hence the lack of rubbish bins and they never seem to stop working and walking so there are no benches for people just to relax on. They are just constantly doing something or moving to their next destination.

On route to the train station to go home we noticed a small shopping centre so we decided to stop in and have a look what they had.

It was nothing amazing but for the first time we noticed a pet store. They sold quite a few animals and seeing as Japanese people love cute things the amount of kittens and puppies they had were ridiculous. Photo above of the beagle and golden retriever puppies were adorable. They were just over $2000 AUD each though! So I guess not many people would own one let alone have the space to own one.

There was a bit of rain expected so we decided to head home. Once hitting the train station at Shin-Osaka sure enough it was raining. With our feet sore and no umbrella we had to quickly jog all the way home whilst everyone else had an umbrella and were leisurely strolling home from work and just watching us as we held tourist maps above our heads to keep ourselves relatively dry.

We also grabbed some dinner across the road from where we were staying. They have this awesome system where there’s a vending machine outside (and inside) of the cafe, you put in your money and choose what you want and hand them the ticket. Within minutes you have a warm cup of green tea in front of you and your meal. The best thing about this place is that everyone just eats and leaves, no chit chat, open 24-hours a day and serves alcohol. There are quite a few business men that stop here before heading home. Meals are cheap and tasty. It’s something I will be eating a bit when I’m in Tokyo that’s for sure, it’s only a little bit more expensive compared to instant noodles and it’s definitely way better.