More castles!

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Woke up in Nara, checked out of our semi-Western Ryokan (it was a modern building, we had a carpeted floor, and Western bed and TV, but the toilets were not in individual rooms but in a communal space, and the shower/bath was downstairs and communal to the whole building) and headed for the train.

Laura picked up some more post cards and we hopped a commuter train into Osaka.

We got on the slightly wrong train, it got us to Osaka, but it turned into a loop train, not a terminus train, we had to backtrack a little switch trains, but with our rail pass it didn't matter.

The hotel is great, and next to Dotonbori and Shinsaibashi, which are two major neighborhoods to check out. The Red Roof Plus is a Western style hotel, wifi, full size bed, fill size shower, outlets out the wazoo, clean is great.

Anyways we wandered around Dotonbori looking for food, it is a pedestrian shopping area, restaurants and stores all over, there is a river that splits it. We decided try a Tako-Ichi please, which I guess is their specialty in this part of Japan.

They are balls of glutenous, wheat based batter, with chopped octopus worked into them. They get cooked in a special griddle that keeps them ball shaped, it kinda looks like a big metal egg carton.

They were very mild flavored. I was expecting them to be a little more dumpling-like, and these just fell apart as soon as you chopsticked them. They were OK, we are going try more from other stalls around Osaka.

We then decided to hit up the Osaka Castle.

On the way to the castle from the nearest station, Laura of course needed coffee, we stopped at a Lawsons (a chain of convinience stores, Japan is full of 7-11s, Lawsons, Sunkory and Family Mart, often right next to each other, its crazy, ill put a bigger write up on that in my Japan conclusion), and found coffee in a can, which isnt that unique, quickmarts and vending machines have been hawking them since we landed, but these were hot. In the refrigerated section is a special shelf that isnt cold, its hot, and you buy canned hot coffee/chocolate/tea, it was good according to her. While perusing the shop i decided to get a package of pancakes, 100 yen for what looked like 4 pancakes.

But they were so much more, it was infact 2 pancake sandwiches, prefilled with butter and syrup. A wave of nostalgia overtook me, remembering the few good minutes of my time in Army Basic; breakfast, where i had 180 seconds to eat my meal, and given breakfast was the only meal i could pretend to be healthy, i would pack on the calories with a pancake sandwich and then eat yogurt and granola until the drills decided i was done.

It was really neat, very well done museum crammed into a castle. There were dioramas, and plaques, including English. I learned a bunch, unfortunately I am frustrated by this not real key board and will only give you a brief write up. I promise later i will go through and add more pictures and text. But by then you probably won't care.

some of those picture are a little wonky, because i had to steal them...The armor in particular was in a NO PHOTO area, so i had to sneakily take the pictures. That armor was worn by one of the major Generals from the Winter Siege of Osaka Castle, and the Summer campaign.

The castle was started in the 16th century, and played a pretty important role n the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The castle was built by the Toyotomi family at the same time the Tokugawa were amassing their own power. These powers clashed and ultimately the Toyotomi clan was wiped out, it's allies we weakened, and the Tokugawa clan had nothing preventing them from unifying the island.

"Unifying" sounds so great, but basically they conquered the entirety of mainland Japan.

Over the next half millennia various parts burned down, and was restored, and burned own again. During the Meiji era it was fixed up and used a an armory, and during WWII it was expanded and employed like 50,000+ people in weapons and munitions production. And during the war the US bombed it, destroying over 90% of the castle, and within the castle walls.

The views were great, as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle if you care to learn more.

Also found a gnarled old castle kitty.

After the castle, we went to the Umeda Sky Building, which is a big building in Osaka that has an observatory on the top. It took us a little while to get there by train, and we missed the sunset by a few minutes. We knew there would be a charge to gt to the observatory, but didnt know how much. Turns out you go up to the 38th floor to pay to go to th 39th floor.

So instead of paying 1000 yen to get one floor higher, we just stolesome views from that floor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umeda_Sky_Building

We made our way home, researched some dinner, and rolled out again. Laura found us a fancy steak place. The Japanese kind where they give you a grill and slices of meat and make it to your liking.

It was a little pricey, but very good, its the thing to do here though l, with Kobe so close they get you with that Wagyu . We got loin, rib meat and fancy (like 18USD for <5oz) steak. It was good, my favorite was the rib meat. The Fancy steak want very impressive, I think I could do the same with a sharp knife and mini grill, with some round or Chuck.

Seeing as the two of us split what amounted to maybe 12oz of meat, and a small (very small) plate of kimchi, I was very hungry. We went around the block to a wing place, and got drunk, and ate 16 wings between us.

The wings were very good, different from any we have had before. We think they were dry rubbed and then baked. The spices were great, and multifaceted.

Then we went home to sleep on our big-not-floor-mat-bed