Osaka and Kobe, Japan – March 5

17 degrees, sunny and glorious

The ship stayed overnight last night in Kobe so we didn’t have to worry about arriving late. Today started off a million times better than yesterday. In fact, it seemed that yesterday’s gong show turned some people off and many bailed on the morning’s excursion. The last 3 groups (ours being one of them) were combined into one with only 14 people and 2 guides – jackpot!!

Our tour today was in Osaka which apparently is Japan’s third largest city. Osaka is closer to Kobe than Kyoto was yesterday and the traffic seemed light – we travelled from the port about an hour before reaching Japan's oldest Buddhist temple in Shitennoji-Temple. The grounds of this temple were founded in the sixth century but the buildings have been repeatedly reconstructed because of earth quakes and other disasters. We arrived just as a monk was performing a memorial ceremony – very interesting.

Each temple we visit in every different countries (and we’ve visited a lot) seems to have something slightly different from the others. This one had 4 wheels under the west gate of the temple that could be turned/spun. Spinning one of these wheels was considered as being worth reading a section of the holy text – interesting.

Next we visited Osaka Castle. The castle is set on a large area of land with various buildings. The main attraction was the central castle building. This is an 8 story building the top being an observation deck. Most of the inside of the castle has been turned into a museum.

Once we were done in the castle we wandered the grounds a bit which were hopping with activity. There were buskers and tons of food stalls. I got a squid on a stick and a beer. The squid was deep fried, but not breaded, very delicious and although sprinkled with salt was slightly sweet.

squid - minus a couple of bites

Our tour ended with about an hour before we were scheduled to sail to Tokyo so we took the opportunity to use the cruise terminal wifi. I’ve said throughout the cruise how good the ship’s wifi is – it’s all what you’re used to…the terminal wifi was lightning fast!

Our sail away was another wonderful farewell by the locals. There was a band and a bunch of people on the outside of the terminal to send us off – they were waving and like mad (so were we) and some had giant hands they were waving.

very proud of myself

We have been very successful this trip acquiring small trinket souvenirs that we will use for Christmas tree ornaments and today was no different. What was different today was something else that was for sale…ear picks…I thought the only thing that was supposed to go in your ear was your elbow – kind of gross and probably not too good for your ear. One of those will NOT be coming home with me for the tree!!

One of the 2 guides today liked to tell jokes, here’s one…What’s the difference between a snow-man and a snow-woman? Snowballs – haha! When he told the punchline, I completely didn’t get it until I realized he said snowBALLS and not snowBOARDS – it was a bit of an ESL moment. There were a couple of others, but one is a bit too offside to write down.

The Japanese washrooms continue to fascinate me…the one I used at the Castle had all the bells and whistles that I’ve come to expect from a Japanese toilet…’shower’ as our guide called it, warm blowing air, scent and sound. What was new was a baby ‘holder’. This was a gizmo attached to the wall next to the toilet that a baby could sit in, it kind of looked like a small high chair without the table and legs – seemed brilliant to me.