Feb.18
Sleep came easy and by morning, we were ready to greet the day. Last night we learned that there was a buffet breakfast on the 54th floor of our hotel, For $15.00 each we could have a selection of both American and Japanese food. It was a huge spread that was hard not to be tempted to eat all of the delicious looking food. They even had ice cream, which one can never turn down. We had read that there is no tipping in Japan and it is an insult if you try to leave a tip. sure makes that part of the bill easier.
From the 54th floor we got a a good view of the bridge that leads to the Kansai International Airport. It is a man made island that was made from leveling two mountains. Sound like it was quite the civil engineering project.
We also got a daylight view of Osaka, which is the third largest city in Japan.
When we first started planning our journey, we thought that we might head directly to Shikoku and begin the pilgrimage soon after our arrival. The hostel that was recommended was full for several days so after rethinking some logistics. We changed our minds to spend another day in Osaka and then head up to Koyasan for a couple of days. Koyasan is surrounded by mountains and is one of Japan’s most sacred sites. It is the center of the Shingon School of Buddhism. Many of the people who are hiking the 88 pilgrimage route will often start their journey here or end it here or do both. In 2004 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is only 2 hours by train and cable car from Osaka. We decided to visit it first and maybe when we are finished. That thought though is too far away. After eating breakfast we head back to the room and gear up for the day to go explore the area near us and visit a train ticket booth to arrange travel to Koyasan tomorrow. At least that is what we thought.. Our first stop was to go to the tourist information located in the same building as our hotel. We wanted to check on getting train tickets for the journey to Koyasan tomorrow. English was basic at best and they pointed us to the train ticket booth. The man there spoke no English so using the translator on our phone we tried to communicate our request to purchase a ticket. As soon as he discovered we were not going today, hje told us to come back tomorrow. There was some early morning trains and on google travel we had an idea of the schedule. Guess we will check it out tomorrow.
Just a couple blocks away is the Rinku outlet stores. It is made up of over 250 stores, many of which are well known brands. Quite a few were recognizable to us.
There are shuttles here that will take you to the airport. It is the largest shopping mall in Western Japan. Many people will shop here before their flights.
As we walked thru the many levels of stores, seeing bargains that did not make sense for us to buy. We were entertained by the displays of food that advertised what was on the menu.
No worries if you didn’t speak Japanese. all you had to do was point. we were impressed by the almost real looking food.
We found a Lawson’s store and used their ATM for getting more yen. In all of our readings Laswons is recogniized as one of the best convenience stores. Next to the Outlet was a park that hugged the sea coast. We spent some time there being amazed at some of the details of their landscaping.
The beach was made of similar sized white rocks. There was a warning that one should not remove any of the rocks.
Not a beach you would want to hang out for sun bathing.
Also along the coast was Tetrapods, They are 10 ton cement blocks used to break up the waves of a tsunami. We can’t imagine the effort to place them here.
On the other side of the sidewalk was a park with 5 different landscape techniques. The first was the technique of Ashideyou
An example of the landscape described above.
Another one was was called Hagitsubo.
It looked like this
One item that was missing in the park was trash cans. There are very few public trash cans in Japan, everyone is expected to take their trash home with them. In our case we have read that using trash cans in convenience stores is allowable as long as you purchase something. We headed back to the mall to buy some bagels for dinner tonight as well as to take on the train tomorrow, We bought some cream cheese and were give small ice packs to keep them cold. Back to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow’s adventure.