Whenever asked what place in the world I would most want to visit, I would always immediately answer - Japan. I've always been fascinated by their culture. Their art, both in the past and present, is really amazing. Their architecture and design aesthetic is so simple and beautiful. Their food is beyond reproach. And, obviously, samurai and ninja are freakin’ awesome! It was with great excitement that we entered Japan for the first time.
We flew into Kansai International Airport and took the hour long train ride into Osaka. For the second time on our trip, we were relying on AirBnB for our accommodation. A short walk from the station brought us to a small, one bedroom apartment. We thought “small” at the time because we were headed for smaller accommodations over the next few weeks. It was late and time to eat so we ventured out for our first taste of Japan.
The apartment was in a good location with several small bars and restaurants around. We choose a place very close to home that had a few people inside. Here's a thing that I did not know about the Japanese - they don't really speak English. For some reason, I had always assumed it was one place where everyone would be well versed in my native tongue but I was super wrong. Overall, this hasn't mattered all that much but that night, it got us an unintentionally expensive meal.
This is not the sign for the restaurant the first night but it is some fun signage in Osaka. Who wouldn't want to eat here?
The few other customers that were there were quick to strike up a “conversation” and help us figure out what to order. And by that I mean stammer through some halting Google translations and point to things and pantomime what we wanted. At one point, I ended up on the phone with a woman's daughter asking me how much money I could spend. We had a great time with them, the food was excellent, and they even bought us a few drinks, but I think the final bill was around $65. Not super expensive but more than we would have liked to spend but, hey, lessons learned.
It was time to explore Osaka! As we are wont to do, we picked a place to go then kind of wandered our way there, stopping at locations along the way that caught our interest. We set out to Osaka Castle (Osaka-jo) in the morning. After walking around for a bit, we set up on a bench next to the inner moat and drew the castle for a while.
One of the outer moat towers. We were two of only a handful of visitors to these sites.
The grounds surrounding the castle are quite nice and we toured through several of the towers along the outer moat before getting to the castle itself. Osaka-jo is very beautiful. It was restored again not too long ago, so this enabled them to make the exterior pristine and the interior a windowless history museum. This was a bit of a disappointment. It definitely did not feel like we were in a Japanese castle as we made our way up to the top viewing level, the only level with windows. Also, I realized about halfway up that we were actually doing the tour backwards. We were supposed to go straight to the top and work our way down. For some reason, most of the signage is in Japanese and I don’t know Japanese. This was not the last time we would visit an attraction in the reverse direction.
Anyway, we did get a good overview of the history of the area and the time right before and after the Edo Period (1601-1868) began. Basically, Toyotomi Hideyoshi conquered all of Japan then died in 1598 while his son was still really young. Afterwards, all of the other samurai killed each other until one guy, Tokagawa Ieyasu, came out on top as Shogun. A lot of this history is presented in long, illustrated scrolls and kanji wall hangings. This was all pretty interesting to me because one of my favorite books, Shogun, is all about this transition into the Edo period.
The restored Osaka Castle is quite a sight. Most of the castle walls, including these containing the moat, are built with a slope for greater stability during earthquakes.
The outer moat towers are all very well preserved and do not look like modern museums.
A few days later, we visited Himeji Castle, which is vastly different from Osaka-jo. Touring this castle definitely feels like stepping into the past. A designated UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most visited castle in Japan, Himeji Castle has been in it’s present day form for nearly 400 years. It has survived countless earthquakes and heavy bombing in the area during World War II. The complex was packed with tourists but we were lucky enough to get an English speaking guide for our entire visit to the castle and the two of us were his only guests. He pointed out all the ways in which the castle is situated to defend itself. From winding approaches riddled with gun and arrow ports, to hidden levels, and some cleverly arranged ascents and descents to confuse the enemy, this castle would have been very hard to take using force. Unfortunately, no one was ever stupid enough to attack it to find out how effective the defenses were. Overall, it was a distinctly different experience from Osaka-jo, though I am glad we saw them both.
Himeji Castle is possibly more grand than Osaka-jo. It's definitely larger. The full tour took about two and a half hours.
Enemies wind their way up and up, back and forth, getting shot at the whole time. Most overhanging windows have openings underneath to drop rocks or hot oil on aggressors as well. Sounds like fun!
Those who haven't been pin cushioned or crushed finally reach the main keep. Unfortunately for them, they still have a ways to go to capture it. It's probably why no one ever tried.
And there are ninjas and samurai hanging around to play sword fighting with. Or make peace with.
We took another day trip out of Osaka, heading south to beautiful Koyasan. This mountain town is home to many temples dedicated to Buddhism and countless shrines, making it a popular pilgrimage destination. The town is not very big but we got a little lost looking for a particular temple. After walking the main street for a while we headed into Okunoin, the two kilometer long walking path, which is home to more than 200,000 tombstones and shrines. The walk culminates with a visit to the Shingon Buddhist monk Kobo Daishi's resting place. It is believed that he still lives in a deep state of zen meditation so monks bring him two meals a day, every day.
This is a steeply inclined tram. Koyasan is 800 meters above sea level and this take you the last 500 meters or so.
Kongobu-ji in Koyasan is home to the largest rock garden in Japan. There are two dragons made of boulders circling each other here.
Prayer stickers adorn a well near a temple entrance.
People place children's clothing on statues of Ojiza-sama to pray for safe passage for children who have passed away before their parents.
You could wander through Okunoin for days and not see all of the shrines. Historical figures, Japanese companies, and even JAXA (Japan's NASA) have shrines here.
Not only are there old shrines but the forest is really old as well. Several of the largest trees are several hundred years old.
To severely contrast our day in a peaceful mountain town, that night we headed into the craziest part of Osaka - Dotonbori and Shinsaibashi. This place was packed shoulder to shoulder with people. Shops with amazing signage lined the pedestrian only streets and promoters tugged at our sleeves to pull us up to whatever attraction they were peddling, usually some kind of sexy club, bar or karaoke joint. We ate ice cream stuffed mango bread and drank some Asahi. Good times.
We were told by Daniel, a musician we met in Hanoi (who is from Canada but lived in Osaka for a while) to eat takoyaki and drink Asahi, which is evidently something Osaka is known for. Takoyaki is a fried ball of gooey goodness with octopus inside slaughtered with some kind of sweet Osaka sauce. It was pretty, pretty, pretty good. We had it several times. Thanks, Daniel!
"Eat my food here NOW!"
Really just amazing, larger than life displays in this district.
Sneaky golden Buddha baby and pictures of sumo wrestlers make this an attractive place to visit.
Takoyaki! Eat all of it!
They get pretty elaborate with their lanterns in Japan.
Osaka was one of the cleanest, most well put together cities that I've ever visited. Amazingly, the Japanese are even more polite than I had heard, saying “thank you” just about every other word. It's really quite nice. If you go to Japan, get used to bowing and saying, “Arigatou gozaimasu” all the time. It was a great introduction to Japan and we knew that we were going to have a wonderful time in the rest of the country.
Definitely a real outfit a samurai would wear.