Back to Japan: Osaka

Another adventure begins with boxing up our two bicycles and heading to the airport. Bicycles and airplanes, however, are a headache. I found a decent price to Narita from İstanbul and figured I could add the Antalya-İstanbul leg later. Nope. It was going to cost hundreds of dollars (US$700? or was it US$900?) to fly with our bikes to İstanbul. I had never seen such pricey flights for that route before.

Buses, however, were reasonable — less than US$100 for two people with bicycles, including a taxi in Antalya, an overpriced porter in Esenler (where we transferred), and even some meals. I had never taken a bus from Antalya to the İstanbul airport before. Turned out to be easy.

That overnight bus ride was followed by an overnight flight to Narita via an early morning layover in Ulaanbataar where I was able to stretch out and sleep a bit. I’ve never been to Mongolia. Here’s what it looks like taking off in the morning at the beginning of November.

On the Japan end our only business in Tokyo was to drop off the bikes at the hotel where we’d be staying three weeks later. Our goal was to get to Kyoto to meet my Dad. That meant another overnight journey (!) — a bus from Tokyo to Osaka.

Dropping our luggage in Tokyo was easy (as was the Narita to Tokyo bus):

and check out the rose arrangement at the Imperial Hotel:

In a bit of a travel stupor our first meal in Japan was at a Chinese beer bar before leaving Tokyo.

We arrived at our hotel in Osaka in the morning about 53 hours after leaving home. However, as expected, we couldn’t check in till eight hours later — definitely a day of dazey sightseeing.

First stop was Temmangu Shrine, a shrine dedicated to — what a surprise — Michizane! On one of our first days in Japan four years ago Ferda and I visited the shrine at Dazaifu where people go to touch the statues of the ox that carried Michizane from the Kyoto/Osaka area to Dazaifu on Kyushu. There’s an ox here at Temmangu as well:

The poet Michizane has turned into the god of learning, and students come to Temmangu to pray for good grades, perhaps via written requests on white pieces of paper:

or maybe on small wooden tablets:

What a coincidence to run into Michizane again. In spite of learning a bit about the Heian Period and even specifically Heian poetry on this trip, we never heard Michizane’s name again.

Next we had a nice walk over to Osaka Castle

where we made the mistake of going inside to the very crowded museum where (I think) we were supposed to learn something about the defeat of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the start of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It was too much information on too little sleep. We did, however, get some views of the city.

What a great find to stumble upon a 10-seat soba noodle place for lunch. We squeezed into the only two empty seats at the end of the counter.

We checked into the hotel at 3pm. I was sleeping by 4pm and actually slept almost a full 12 hours — amazing. Hungry at 4am I walked out to the street where a taxi was waiting, an older woman was walking home with groceries, and a corner bar was busy with half a dozen youngsters eating and drinking. Finding a bowl of noodles and a coffee was simple.

It was nice to feel a bit more alive the next day. Second breakfast:

We came across a flea market near our hotel

and then took the subway a bit south to Namba where we visited unusual Namba Yasaka Shrine.

Nearby Dotonbori is known for its restaurants, but we weren’t hungry yet.

I thought this building was an interesting mix of traditional and modern:

Ferda and I took a train for the short ride to Kyoto and met my Dad that evening. Arriving on a 12-hour Los Angeles-Osaka flight, it was his turn to be jet-lagged.

Next up, a week in Kyoto.