Osaka trip - Day 3

My buddy said he wanted to visit the Fushimi Inari, a shrine with 1000 torii gates. Torii gates are traditional gates that mark the entrance to a Shinto shrine, symbolizing the transition from the everyday secular world to a sacred space. While some gates are carved from stone, but in general, they're made out of wood and painted vermilion, a color believed to ward off evil spirits. I wanted to go hiking to a suspension bridge, but I guess that's gonna have to wait til the next time.

My buddy wanted to leave bright and early so we could beat the crowds. Seems like everybody and their grandmothers had the same idea. There was a good sized crowd when we got to the shrine. My buddy said that the crowd will thin out the higher we go. The climb was a combination of stairs and paved paths. The stairs were uneven, some steep, some low, but we huffed and puffed our way up. I had my hiking stick with me, and I overheard a few people saying they should have brought one, too. LOL

We got to a point where there was an observation deck to enjoy the view of the city. It was a nice day and the view was pretty clear. My buddy said he only got up to this point the last time he came since his sister gave up and couldn't go any further. He asked if I wanted to continue to the summit. I figured we could give up at any time. Besides, when I looked at the map, the summit wasn't too far if we took the route on the right.

I was huffing and puffing up a set of rather steep stairs, and people coming down told me to hand in there since the summit is just 5 minutes away. We finally made it to the summit, but it was rather underwhelming. There was a shrine up there, but it was surrounded by trees and there was no view so it was hard to tell that we were actually at the summit.

We headed back down the mountain. Man, I'm glad we took the route to the right. Going down the route that would've been on the left wasn't all that pleasant and it would've taken longer to get to the summit. Going up would've been worse. I'm glad we took the route to the right.

I was taking my dear sweet time strolling along the path. Since there's only one path, my buddy went ahead at his own pace, but he did wait for me to catch up. As there were fewer people near the summit, it was pretty peaceful walking along the path, enjoying nature and fresh mountain air.

I made it down to the bottom to find my buddy waiting for me in the shade. It was nice and cool up in the mountain, but the temps got pretty toasty when we reached civilization. We grabbed a burger before we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before we go out to explore Dotonbori.

Dotonbori is the symbolic business and shopping district in Osaka. The street is lined on both sides with a variety of restaurants and popular ones are really crowded. A popular street food is takoyaki, savory dish of grilled balls of batter made with flour and eggs filled with octopus chunks and other ingredients like pickled ginger and leftover fried tempura batter.

Our original plan was to enjoy some street food and maybe find a restaurant to have dinner, but my buddy got overwhelmed by the crowd (Dotonbori was extremely crowded, even on a weekday evening) and he wasn't all that hungry. I wasn't either, since I was pretty tired from the hike at the torii gates.

We were going to explore the area, but we decided to just head back to the hotel. While neither of us wanted a full dinner, we wanted something to nibble on. I found a 551 Horai, a very popular Osaka-based Chinese food chain famous for its handmade steamed pork buns. I wanted to get some gyoza so I went to the shop. My buddy went to the convenience store to pick up some nibbles for himself. Sadly, they were out of gyoza, so I got some steamed dumplings and a couple of pork buns. I picked up some jasmine tea at the convenience store as well as some ice cream. We enjoyed our nibbles in the room. The dumplings were pretty good. I ate half and had the rest for breakfast later.

What with all the walking and crowds, it was a pretty tiring day, but it the fresh mountain air was nice.

 June 7