alright, ’nuff of masha for time being, i know it’s time to get back to my travelogue! hehe.. only at day 4.. my speed indeed… S-L-O-W.

what to do.. now that i have so many distractions. hurhur.

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day 4

another day of rushing, we were planning to go to osaka today. we still have the famous inari taisha to cover before leaving for osaka so we started the day early with a hearty breakfast at macs at the jr kyoto station~

mac’s ebi fillet! i hope they will bring it here, it’s yummy!

kinda hilarious though, we almost took the wrong train again when we wanted to go to inari. inari is only two stops away but for some strange reason, the announcement in the train didn’t mention the stop at all. sensing something wrong, i went to the train master and indeed, we have to go to another platform. good thing we did, or we would end up at nara. that’s like another city altogether!

being only two stops away, we reached inari in less than ten minutes.

the whole place rocks cuz it’s soooo near the train station (yay, less walking!)

 
this archway is all too familiar~

it seemed that the 357 festival was on all around japan (where kids of ages 3, 5 and 7 go to temples and pray for good health and intelligence), so many cute kids around!

 
かわいいですねぇ～～～～～～～～～

the temple is famous for its whole stretch of 1000 archways which goes all the way up into the inari mountains. but of course, that’s a bit too difficult for us. it really is very very high up.

 
 
looks like it’s neverending…

but we decided that since we were here, at least we should go halfway into the woods. we did, and we came across this really nice lake.

 <- a nice auntie took for us =D

apparently, grilled sparrow is a famous delicacy of inari and trust me, i really really wanted to try when i heard about it. but when i saw the rows of sparrow sprawled across the fire, roasted into what seemed almost like roasted pigs.. i took a step back and changed my mind. fine, i’m a coward. sue me.

after inari, it’s back to jr kyoto and all the way to osaka. we took the rapid jr and it took us about an hour to reach shin-osaka. we didn’t quite know where to go in osaka but osaka castle was our first destination (my knowledge of osaka is sadly limited to osaka-jo and shinsaibashi. HAHA)

look at that wonderful painting!

 
i’m so near the castle!

coincidentally, they also have a chrysanthemum festival~

look at how they bloom!!!

bad english instance 2

this picture was taken with my phone camera. and it was all because of this naughty three boys who were by the fountain. my camera was dying and i wanted to use the last breath of its battery to take this picture. but the boy who held my camera had to wait because his senpai suddenly went into the fountain to pick up a football!!!! grrrrr. my camera totally died during the wait and thus i had to use my handphone. grrrr.. that irritating senpai!!!

look at that! a pet otter? wth?

after touring osaka castle and its surroundings, we made our way to shimsaibashi, so called the shibuya of tokyo, it seems.

 
we’re here! (ok i’m acting stupid)

 
dinner is : okonomiyaki.. at osaka! the origins!!!

forgive me for the lack of pictures at shimsaibashi, my camera was afterall, dead.

shimsaibashi was okay.. not much things to see. harajuku is still the best place to shop and eat~ so after a while of walking, we went back to kyoto..

but not before a visit to a real izakaya!!!

yakitori place just beside j-hoppers… ROCKs! THEIR YAKITORI IS GOOD!!!

a toast! kirin lager beer is sooooooo yummy!

see, xiaodi & xiaoping. i do drink beer, i’m just choosy.

hohoho.. after so many days of walking and rushing, how better than to enjoy ourselves at a good onsen? so watch out for that…

listening to: galileo ost — tantei galileo