Another bus ride day – 2 hours – and unfortunately Typhoid Mary is right next to us across the aisle.  Ugh.  Double masks again. To add to our (and everyone’s) woes, today is a total wash out day – rainy and windy to boot.  This should be fun!  Our first stop before we leave Kyoto is the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine, dedicated to the Fox, which is considered the God of Rice. We arrive at the shrine after a 10 minute walk through wet and bustling streets.  And, lo and behold, it is packed with tourists.  Osamu says it isn’t very busy now, and will get busier in an hour or so. Really?  Because it is so busy now you can’t even see the shrine – or get a good shot of the famous Torii gates that stretch up the mountain. 

We know the meeting place, so we head up the mountain trying to get some good shots of at least some of the 1,000 gates – but it is impossible.  The only way to do it is to erase the people in the camera app – which we do – but in reality – you can’t see past the people and the umbrellas.  You can climb up to the two shrines – one in the middle of the mountain, one at the top, but we aren’t going to waste our time.  It is just too crowded and wet and – well – no.  We take what photos we can, actually climbing up a little embankment on the outside of the gates for a couple of pictures, then meander our way back down through the shrine area in general. 

We got a great picture of the map though!

Heading back into the streets surrounding the shrine, we find a perfect little coffee shop where we dry out and warm up with an excellent cappuccino and the first person we have encountered in a shop that speaks flawless English!  All is right with the world.

Having tons of time left, we wandered back up to the shrine through the back roads, looking at all the great food it was too early to buy to eat – then onto the property for some really cool shots of different statues and Inari (the foxes), then to the meeting point to wait for the rest of the group.

Everyone actually made it back – although it was a little debatable there for a bit – and we all walked our way back to the bus area – waiting at the railway crossing for an oncoming train – then to the parking lot to pick up our ride to Osaka.  And 2 hours later we arrive – to Kuroman market where Zo took us a little over a week ago!  But it is a Saturday, and while we thought it was busy when we were here – oh – it was nothing like this!  Osamu gives us the basic tour, explaining the seafood market and that it has been around for 400 years and used to be the place the locals came for their seafood needs.  Now it is tourist central, but everyone seems to have a good time wandering around and perusing all the fabulous seafood available.  We meander about, spotting the great little restaurant where we had our ramen, and eyeing the black vanilla gelato – but deciding it is too early and too messy to try to eat it among all these people – plus that would mean taking off our masks!

We gape at the tax free store that has a line about 100 people long – who all have baskets filled to the brim with stuff.  One guy comes out with 50 packages of some sort of candy or sweets or something.  Amazing!

Once the group was back together, we moved on to the Dontonbori shopping street.  We’ve been here with Zo as well, and this was to be our lunch spot.  So, per usual, we found out where the meeting point was and boogied.  Osamu walked everyone down the street showing them restaurants and places to go – but we veered off and went out of the main busy area, finding this great place which was a DIY BBQ place with grills right on the table!  We didn’t actually do it ourselves, the waitress did – but still – it was great.  We had grilled squid and grilled crab and miso and the best sashimi ever!  And they actually had reasonably priced wine!  yay! 

The best part was that it wasn’t crowded at all, because it was off the beaten-tourist path.  Everywhere else on that tourist street had wait times of up to 30 minutes.  No way.  (Although that seems to be the norm here….long wait lines!)

Back on the tourist path, we succumbed to a freshly baked melon bread roll stuffed with cherry blossom ice cream.  Well worth the calories – it was amazing. Plus how could you resist the advertising “signage” above the shop!  Then we went back to hang out on the corner and wait for the rest of the group to coalesce and get back to the bus. 

Our last stop of the day is the Osaka castle, which we were going to skip because the weather is just sort of wet and icky, but then we decided to go ahead and just do it.  It was included after all – and this means tomorrow we have a whole day to ourselves and we don’t need to backtrack to come to the castle. Osamu walks us around the exterior of the castle property, along the “dry” moat which has the original stone construction. That was pretty cool to see how they fit all the stones together and how they strategically curved the edges to make the walls harder to scale.

Inside the castle courtyard were more nice views of the castle building itself.  Inside the castle, TBH, was just ok, so we’re glad we did it on Gate 1’s dime.  As with everything else here, it was very crowded, but instead of waiting in the long line for the elevator, we walked up to the 8^th floor viewing area which had nice views across the city and the “wet” moat.  Then we descended, skirting around the displays on the other floors and ended up wandering around the exterior and the gardens for 45 minutes – which was lovely. 

We also visited a neat shrine right outside the castle gates that was built for the Shogun who built the castle.  It was lovely and peaceful and full of great scenery, and very enjoyable away from the masses.

Waiting for the group to gather, we wander around the exterior of the castle, taking more photos of the stark white exterior and the surrounding gardens.  Then we hike back to the bus parking lot and finally, blessedly, onto the hotel for our last nights of the tour.

We are staying at the Courtyard Marriott at Shin-Osaka station, which is perfect for us as we are taking the bullet train on Monday back to Tokyo.  Plus, the hotel is great.  Nice large rooms, tons of amenities.  Perfect for our 2 night stay here.  After getting our keys and dumping our packs, we go out to explore the train station and figure out where we need to go tomorrow.  Turns out it is super easy – roll the bags right out the door on the elevated pedestrian walkway, walk 3 minutes to the station, enter the gates on the same level.  Not even an escalator needed. Couldn’t be simpler.

Reversing course, we head to the 7&I around the corner, stock up on room necessities – everything branded 7&I, even the wine and the beer! – then arrive back at the hotel to find our luggage in our room.  All is well here in Osaka!

Later, for dinner, we hit the train station – because it is like a mall!  (PS – we did it on our own, not going on the train station walk with Osamu – we’re sort of done with that!) After reviewing our options, and a small food court, we settled on a place that specializes in Kochi dishes so we were able to have Katsuo no Tataki – the seared bonito fish we love!.  Along with Karaage – the fried chicken we are just about living on. Beer and wine complete an excellent light meal, and we are soon back in the room hanging out for the rest of the evening. 

So, amongst the many things that we love about Japan, one of the funniest things are the translations.  Who knows if it is simply Google translate, or if these signs really do says these things, but here are a couple of our favorites.  The first is a sign at the parking lot entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine.  Car Exorcism!  The second was actually on a printed sign out front of a restaurant.  Menew.  Don’t know how much confidence we’d have in the rest of their translations on that Menew!!!