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.

Our Trip Out of Tokyo

We had to wake up a little earlier on Monday. Our bullet train would be leaving Tokyo Station at 11am, but we needed to get there early, in case we got lost. Furthermore, lunch was to be on the train, so we needed to buy our bento lunches and drinks. We had our yummy lunch and soon we all fell asleep, despite the spectacular view.

We arrived in Shin-Osaka Station right on time. After a short walk, we arrived at Laforet, our company's corporate hotel. It was a simple hotel, but daddy loved the room. Have a look and see why:

Can't figure out why? Have a look again:

Got it? Yup, this massage chair. Daddy's favourite spot the moment we get into this room! And he was on it most nights after our long long walks.

Well, after checking in, we rushed off to the train station again. We wanted to either go to Nara or Himeiji. We hopped onto the train with the intention of heading to Osaka and changing trains to head to Nara. But we changed our minds when we noticed that we were on the special rapid headed for Himeiji. Yikes.. what a BIG mistake! It was the "slow train" heading to Himeiji, taking almost an hour to arrive at Himeiji. We rushed all the way to Himeiji Castle, but we were too late. Just missed the last entry at 4pm. So what to do? We took some pictures before heading back to the train station to book our Shinkansen tickets back to Shin-Osaka. Since we had time, we had dinner in Himeiji before heading home.

We woke up early on the next day to head to Himieji again, as we were behind schedule. Since we had already booked our tickets, we knew the time and did not have to rush for the non-reserved seats. We arrived at Himeiji and took a cab to the castle. Hehe.. save our legs to walk the castle grounds. It was a beautiful castle, being a UNESCO World Heritage too..

There were times when we entered the castle area and needed to remove our shoes. It was interesting. We even climbed the castle. It was 6 floors high. Ah Ma gave up after the 3rd floor. You on the other hand obviously followed us. So you got "imperial" treatment, being carried up the stairs by Ah Kong or Daddy. They had to take turns. Mummy could not carry you, as the steps were narrow and rather steep. We even got to stamp on our brochure to "prove" that we reached the top. There were 2 groups of school children at the top too. They were there on a school excursion. How lucky...

After that, we headed back towards the train station. But before that, we had our lunch. Ah Ma insisted that we had lunch in Himeiji as she had read somewhere that wheat was grown in Himieji and so the noodles there is delicious. And it sure was. We all had udon cooked in different styles. And everyone agreed that it was DELICOUS!

Next we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto, our first choice location which we did not manage to get a room. And now we know why we couldn't get a hotel room. The crowd there was AMAZING! So many people in all the places that we visited. So where did we go to? First stop by cab was to Sangjusangendo a temple with 1001 Kanon, Goddess of Mercy. Too bad no pictures were allowed. So we only walked in to have a look pray a little and off we went to the second stop.

Where to? Next stop is Kiyomizudera, another temple. But we didn't see much of the temple, instead enjoying the wonderful scenery there. We took lots of pictures, but here's one of the beautiful view. Amazing, don't you agree?

We were a little late, so we decided to catch the later Shinkansen and so dinner was at Kyoto Station. We originally planned to eat nearby, but it started to drizzle just as we were leaving the station, so we doubled back to the station, walked around, looking at the many restaurants before deciding on one restaurant. Remember how I said before the food that we have eaten is great? Well, the food in this restaurant was... not the best. Too bad.. We did a little shopping before heading to the platform to wait for our train. And so that's the end of our second day away from Tokyo.