Our Trip Out of Tokyo - Continued

Our third day out of Tokyo was spent in Nara and Osaka. As with the day before, we all woke up early to get ready for another long day. We arrived at Shin Osaka station to change trains to Osaka, then to Tennoji and then to hop on another train to bring us to Nara. It took almost 30 minutes by rapid train to reach Nara. Upon arrival, we got some information then hopped on a taxi that took us to the Nara Park where another UNESCO World Heritage site was located, Todaiji.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the residents of the park. See...

They were everywhere. And we even got to buy food to feed them. So we need to beware when carrying any packaging, as they seem to think it's food! Goodness...

We walked a little bit and soon arrived at the beautiful temple of Todaiji, which resides Japan's largest Buddha statue and also being the world biggest wooden structure. The weather was VERY cold. Thank goodness mummy bundled you up well. So hopefully you were warm. As with all the places that we have been to so far, it was rather crowded. There were local and foreign tourists there. We walked around the temple and its grounds before buying some souvenirs and leaving the temple grounds. As we didn't have anything else planned, we walked around the park for a while before trying to eat lunch, as you were hungry. Too bad.. the restaurant nearby was crowded. So we headed back to the station (daddy bought rice crackers for you.. and you were contented with that.. phew) and since there was one direct train heading to Osaka, we decided to have lunch in Osaka.

Family Picture in front of Todaiji

In Nara Park

Another 1 hour train ride, with all of us napping all or most of the way back to Osaka. We took a late lunch at one of the restaurants near the train station before hopping on another train to Osaka-ko. Where to next? The Osaka Kaiyukan. Where?? The AQUARIUM.. yay.. finally we get to see something different.

Got out of the station into the freezing weather. We're near the harbour. That's why... So we tried to walk as quickly as possible to reach the end of the road where the Kaiyukan was supposed to be. Sadly we met with an accident on the way there. We'd stopped at an intersection and daddy was zipping up your jacket (you were walking) when a big gust of wind blew and the stroller went off like a bullet! It zoomed so quickly that before daddy could save it, it crashed into a van that was waiting for the light to turn green. Phew.. luckily no damage there and the driver was ok with the little accident! It was a scary thing when we saw the stroller zooming away, but we all had a good laugh after that... Good thing you weren't on the stroller. We are still wondering if the stroller would have run off if you were seated on it. Lesson learnt: put on the brakes when no one is minding the stroller.. or make sure someone holds on to it all the time.

The Kaiyukan had multi levels, starting from the 8th floor, we worked our way to the lower floors. Here are some of the attractions that we saw there. The main attraction was the Whale Shark. Of course there were others too. Can you guess what species this is?

Haha.. it was the attraction of the season: swimming Santa. Cute, eh? We met him on the way to the nursing room. Yup, they had a nursing room there. So convenient. Of course, we could not leave without a souvenir. So what did we get you? Haha.. a whale shark soft toy.

As it was still early, we tried to take a picture of the Christmas tree there.. But it was SOOOO cold, so we attempted to take a picture before running to the warmth of the nearby shopping center. Walked around a little, had dinner before heading back to the station to take a train back to Shin-Osaka. And that was the end of another day.

The plans for our final day was to be a lazy day before heading to the train station to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.. but NoOooo.. you decided otherwise.. You had to wake up at 7am and so all of us also had to wake up. Since you were up, we wanted to go to Osaka to walk around the shopping mall.. but NooOooo... you had other plans in mind. You decided to fall asleep just as we were leaving. So we lazed around the hotel room, until you woke up, we checked out, left our luggage at the station before heading to Osaka. But we only had 1 hour to spend before rushing back to Shin-Osaka, buy lunch and hop on the bullet train back to Tokyo.

Xmas Decoration in Hankyu Department Store

As always, you napped almost all the way back to Tokyo. Daddy managed to get this beautiful scenery on the way back. Mt Fuji...

Oh yeah.. by the way, we saw this place that caught out attention on the way to Osaka on Monday. It was a factory with little babies showing their bottoms to us. Hehe.. it was a Unicharm factory, makers of Mamy Poko, the diapers that you are using.. Too bad it was too fast for us to get a picture.