our day in osaka was the only day where rain was in the forecast, so the plan was to shop and eat everything in sight! starting with this seafood booth!
shumai at a place recommended by nancis coworker
coming out of osaka station puts you in shinsaibishi, osakas main shopping district. its a long street with tons of shops ranging from souvenir shops to high end retail
someone went crazy in this 3 story sanrio store
interesting note about shopping in japan. the whole buying something, deciding you dont want it, and returning it... thats a western thing. in japan, you gotta be sure you want something before you buy it, and return things only if they are defective. returning things is a huge ordeal, we realized this after having to do it a couple times. if youre used to buying things at macys, and just having them do a quick scan of the return label if you dont want it... dont plan on doing that here!
we had lunch in dotonbori, a popular tourist destination next to shinsaibashi that runs along the dotonbori canal. a lot of people were recommending that we try okonomiyaki, which is a savory grilled pancake. we tried it at a place right along the canal
noodles for the kids
our server recommened this pork okonomiyaki, which was really good
and this cheese one, which was still good but a little weird and super rich so it was hard to finish
the sun was starting to go down, and thats when dotonbori really comes to life!
we had fun strolling through the hoards of people, trying different food along the way
we wanted to try these octopus balls, but the lines were always so long. later we read that the octopus balls is one of the thigns that osaka is known for, so we were super bummed we didnt get to try them!
ill try your balls one day fellas
dotonbori was crazy place, we had a lot of fun exploring here
a couple days after osaka, we headed to nara for a day, which is just under an hour from kyoto, again by jr train
we arrived at nara station, and headed through the city to get to nara park to see wild deer
there are tons of wild deer all over nara park
people sell these crackers to feed the deer. aiden was loving it but ava was too scared to feed them
i read that the deer can be very aggressive with kids. they were actually really nice to the kids, but they were aggressive with me! once i gave them a cracker, they would follow me and head butt me trying to get more
heading over to see the todai-ji temple, we came across this interesting staircase. it has a ramp in the middle of it, so you can push your stroller up it
see?!?!?
we stopped by the isuien garden on the way to the temple
ava has had awesome facial expressions in all her photos from this trip haha
finally arrived at todai-ji. not sure if yo can tell from these photos, but this temple is jaw droppingly HUGE
deer seriously all over the place
all up in our pictures
so another weird thing about a lot of these cities. they are so clean... yet there are NO trash cans anywhere. not even in the bathroom, because you dont need a trash can in the boathroom cause they dont even have paper towels! this was particularly a problem in nara, because we had t carry our trash in a small bag with us, and these deer kept trying to get at our trash bag cause they could smell the leftover food
nanci had to put her phone in panorama mode to get this thing in one photo
housed inside the temple is the daibutsu, the worlds largest bronze buddha statue
there was an INSANE line to crawl through this hole. i guess once you pass through it, you get some kind of enlightenment. aiden wanted to go through it... i dont think so kid we are not waiting in that line (cue temper tantrum)
huge gate on the temple grounds
revolving sushi for dinner on the way back to nara station. funny, its japan so we were expecting sushi restaurants on every corner. they were actually very hard to come by. this was the first sushi restaurant we ate at the whole trip
its always fun to try mcdonalds in other countries to see what they have that is popular and unique to that country. in japan, its the ebi burger, which is a fried shrimp patty in a bun with sauce. pretty tasty!
this place reminded us of bottega louie back home, so we grabbed some macarons for dessert
back in kyoto after a long day of exploration
some potstickers to end the night
both osaka and nara were a lot of fun, and each was definitely doable in a daytrip from kyoto. the perfect amount of time to hit the major sites in each city, and to get a good feel for what each place is like. next stop... tokyo!
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