Today we hung out in Osaka, but it was really hot so we tried to be outside as little as possible while the sun was out. Here are some highlights, followed by the photos I posted to Instagram that day:
In the morning we walked to Shitenno-ji Temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan and it’s right in our neighborhood! In addition to having a number of beautiful buildings and sculptures, there was a large pond with tons of turtles in it.
After that we went to a mall called HEP Five. Osaka has a lot of malls, but we went to this one in particular because it has the Gudetama Cafe. We ate lunch there – it was as completely ridiculous as I expected – and then walked around inside the mall until the deadly sunlight went away.
There was a massive arcade called Joypolis, so we spent a little time there. They had a whole section that was just for girls (guys could go in there only if they were in the company of a girl). It seemed to primarily be really advanced photo booths, with a whole section for doing makeup, costumes, etc. It was kind of fascinating.
We also played the drumming game I love, and this time I came the closest I’ve ever come to beating Jason in one round – I did better than him on one metric, but he still got a higher score. Then we saw a girl playing a super advanced level and she just killed it. I couldn’t stop watching. When she was done (she looked exhausted), I gave her 2 thumbs up and she smiled.
There was also a Ferris wheel on top of the building. One of those very slow moving ones that gives you great views of the city. Jason wasn’t feeling it, so I went on it by myself.
On the rest of the floors it was mostly clothes shops. This mall is clearly designed almost entirely for teenagers, so not really our style and definitely not our size, but we saw some entertaining things. Oh, and there was a Sanrio store, where I bought a Gudetama travel bag that I’ll use as a carry on bag when we go home. Finally, we ate dinner in another place in the mall – a rice omelet restaurant.
Then we bought some snacks to take on our hike and went home to repack our luggage so that we’ve got 4 days of clothes and supplies in our back packs, and we’re ready to check the rest of our stuff into a luggage room at the train station.
Walking tally: Fitbit says I again walked 15k steps today, which is about 6.5 miles. That’s a total of almost 132 miles of walking for the trip so far.
And here are the photos I posted to Instagram on this day:
And there are a lot more photos from this day in this set on flickr (with photos from June 10th also).
Lovsky Adventures 