Osaka-Kyoto

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I suppose I should make more of an effort to write on here. I've been here about a week, and enjoying myself so far. It took a little longer than I planned to get to Osaka since my flight was delayed and I missed my connection in Seoul. Luckily the airline provided the group of us who missed our connections with a hotel room near the airport and booked us on the first flight the next morning. In the end I only lost a few hours. I got into Osaka and my hostel about 2:00 in the afternoon, dropped off my bag and went out to check out a few neighborhoods. Den Den town, the electronics part of town, but was somewhat disappoining, it didn't compare to Akihabara in Tokyo. Dotombori, a big nightlife, shopping and eating neighborhood was great though. I got some takoyaki, fried balls with octopus that were delicious. I went back there a couple of nights later and had okonomiyaki, also delicious. A big castle sits at the center of Osaka, where I spent a morning walking around. A few school groups were there, but once they left it was nice and quiet.
That seemed to exhaust most of the sights in Osaka, so the last day there I did a trip to Nara, about 50 minutes away by train. There is a nice big park filled with incredibly tame deer. It seemed pretty risky to try eating anything outside. The deer just lay on the sidewalk with groups of tourists bunching around them. The main sight in Nara was the big buddha, housed in a beautiful temple.
Yesterday I checked out in the morning and made my way to Kyoto. It only took about an hour by train, and my guesthouse was only a short walk from a subway station. The guest house is in a beautiful part of town, in an old house and the owners are very friendly. After I dropped off my bag, I started walking around the neighborhood to several of the major temples withing walking distance. After a few hours I ended back at the hostel to check in and rest before heading out in the other direction to check out the shopping and eating neighborhood nearby. Yesterday I got a fairly early start and walked north to the Philosophers Walk, a very nice path along a canal with a few temples along the way. The walk ends at the Ginkaku-ji, the Silver temple, a beautiful place. From there I took a bus to the other side of town, to Kinkaku-ji, the Gold Pavilion. It was a small place, but the pavilion itself was incredible. The entire pavilion was covered in gold leaf. I then took a bus and subway south to Mt. Inari, where there is a 4km walk up the mountain where nearly the entire path is lined with Torii, the red gates. There must be thousands of them along the path. I only made it about halfway before turning around, since I had already been walking for most of the day.

Today I will be moving on to Kobe for a night, then taking an overnight bus to Hiroshima. Hopefully I will be able to post a few pictures soon.

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