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The rain is starting to fall albeit heavy at times. The hydrangeas are starting to bloom everywhere signifying the coming of the hot and very humid Osaka summer. But we still have a couple more weeks before we retreat back to our home under the protection of our dear air conditioner. We had a very busy spring. We manage to go around the Kansai area, meaning our city Osaka, and surrounding prefectures of Kyoto and Wakayama while at the same time getting ready for our son's graduation at primary school and entry to elementary school, both in the month of April.
Writing for travelblog is the one thing that I have consistently done as compared to anything I did involving social media. I have been slacking for quite sometime. Although my writings and travel experiences are way far behind in both quality and destination from the bloggers of this website, I always feel a sense of unwritten camaraderie among bloggers here. Its difficult for me to find time to write as of late, one reason is I am now writing for a tourist website here in Japan, and at the same time maintaining a travel feature in a community paper.
I get paid a little now for my writing. I feel that instead of enhancing my skills, my writing now felt more like a task, a reporting of facts, then attached some pictures and then make sure I make the next deadline. And too much writing does really affect my passion to enjoy writing for the sake of writing, which I used to do here at traveblog. I really miss writing just for the heck of it.
What can be more definitive in Japan than cherry blossoms. This country being my home for the past 7 years, something will surely feel amiss if I didn't get a chance to dine under a beautiful cherry tree at least twice. Timing is very crucial when trying to catch this delicate blossoms for foreigners wanting to come just to witness this. Usually locals and tourists would crowd and converge on famous viewing sites to have a picnic and get drunk all together. Vying for picnic space can be tough and viewing with barbecue smoke billowing everywhere is not quite too good of an experience for me. My family would usually go to a nearby park, where we get to chose the prettiest
and most abundant cherry tree among the many and dine underneath it. These cherry blossoms are really a beautiful sight, so simple, lasted mostly seven days at its peak then its gone. A glimpse, a brief memory, maybe that's why it is so special.
One Sunday morning we felt like we've seen everything there is to see in Osaka so we just thought, maybe its about time we climbed a mountain. It's a good thing that Kyoto, is very accessible from Osaka. Kyoto known as the cultural center of the country, plus the fact that its dotted with World Heritage Sites, there is always something you've never done in this place no matter how many times you've visited it. Japan is mountainous region, and we knew that we have reached the point, that to see something new, we must be willing to put on our hiking shoes and sweat it out a little. This brought us to the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha, a very important Shinto shrine which sits on a base of a mountain. There are thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, all over Japan. Inari Okami is primarily the god of rice, however, also venerated as the
patron of merchants and businesses. This begs me to ask the question, “okami” meaning fox, which is an animal described to be cunning and shrewd might be the reason this god is related to business? The shrine is popular with its mountain trails lined up with thousands of torii gates. Just when you thought shrines and temples in Japan are starting to look all the same, then you are in for an orange filled surprise at Inari Mountain. The amazing mountain hike is lined up with torii gates donated by businesses ranging from small size torii for around 200,000 yen to a large one for more than a million yen.
My usually energetic son enjoyed the climb so much, while me and my daughter struggled for our dear breath, and our poor legs. You can reach the top of the mountain on a 2-hour climb. We did it little less than 3. a slow hike with two short snack breaks and another for lunch. The main shrine at the base of the mountain was grand and very beautiful. The trails up the mountain were dotted with smaller and ornate shrines, some of which I would say felt kind of
cozy.
On one drizzly spring day, we met up with good friends to dine at our favorite Thai restaurant and decided to walk around the Namba area. Wow we were in for such a great surprise as we saw so many people dressed up in wacky and weird costumes. Aside from cherry blossoms, cosplay is also quite a distinctive part of Japanese culture, although a bit weird for my taste, well it was fun, as long I'm not the one all dressed up . I saw cosplayers here and there, but first time I saw so many of them converge all in one place.
"Hanami" or flower viewing, is a fun Japanese tradition. Viewing areas usually have a kiosks that sells food and even games for children, Japanese traditional music and performances. Would have enjoyed it so much if not for my allergies which gets worse every year. Aside from cherry blossoms, my wife would not miss azalea viewing.
We've also been to some obscure shrines in Wakayama and revisited the Osaka Jo Castle with visiting friends from the Philippines. It was a busy spring and we are looking forward to take an out of town trip
or two. We tried to stay indoors during summer weekends as humidity Osaka tops the whole of the country, when it comes to the sticky competition.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Good photo
I always love seeing these photos. I'd love to see that in person.