I woke up Sunday morning and didn't want to go back to
the café for breakfast, so I walked to the closest station and found a bakery. I picked up a few kinds of bread, including a
very tasty sweet potato-and-poppy-seed roll, and a bunch of bananas. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had to
go back to Umeda Station to pick up a second ¥2000 unlimited pass before
heading to the Tennoji area. My primary
(main) reason for going there was to see the Shitennoji Temple, but there was
also a park, zoo, tower, and art museum that I had free access to, and I had
until 4:30 PM to see everything I could.
Besides, how long could it take to explore a zoo? Boy, was I wrong about that.
Thinking that the zoo was smaller than it was, I fully
intended to see all of it. It ended up
being much larger than I had thought, and I spent close to three hours
wandering around it. I started out
taking pictures of almost everything, but as my enthusiasm waned and my boredom
increased, the number of photos I took quickly dropped off. It wasn't a bad zoo, just not a great one
either. The animals didn't exactly look
thrilled to be there, and some of them didn't look all that healthy. The most interesting exhibit was a dark
indoor area full of nocturnal animals, and it was interesting to see a tanuki
(Japanese raccoon dog) as well.
To protect my throat, I wore a face mask for most of the
trip to trap the moisture. Fortunately,
Osaka seemed to be more humid than Iwaki, so I'd had almost no problems while I
was there. In fact, I woke up on Sunday
morning with no trace of pain or discomfort, which was very welcome
indeed. Unfortunately, I made the
mistake of eating lunch at the zoo, and it was some of the worst concession
food I'd ever had. Whatever was in the
cold, seemingly half-cooked okonomiyaki and unpleasant tasting meat bun made my
throat flare up again, and despite my best efforts I felt lousy the rest of the
day.
I finally left the zoo around 2 PM and headed over to
Tsutenkaku Tower, passing through a surprisingly seedy area in the
process. One minute I was on a shopping
street, and the next most of the buildings had pictures of naked women on
them. When I got to the tower, I found
out that it had a 45-minute wait, so I gave up on seeing the view from the
top. I walked over to Shitennoji Temple,
stopping at a very interesting little temple on the way. One amusing thing I noted there were the
offerings of junk food to the statues; it felt very 'ancient meets modern.'
Shitennoji Temple is a reconstruction like Osaka Castle,
but it was quite interesting. It had
some enormous Buddha statues (which were inside no-photo buildings,) and a very
impressive five-story pagoda. In a
pleasant surprise, I was able to climb to the top of the pagoda. Each floor had hundreds of small,
pagoda-shaped bronze tablets inscribed with characters, and they were carefully
arranged in neat rows in glass cases all along the walls. The sheer number of them in total was a
little overwhelming. I had used up more
of my camera's batteries at the zoo than I had thought, and had to switch to
taking pictures with my phone at the very end.
I exited the temple around 4 PM, and I briefly considered
going to the Osaka Museum of History. I
was feeling pretty rundown (tired) by that point, though, so I instead chose to
go straight to the spa. It was a long
walk from the closest station, and I was very relieved to arrive and get out of
the cold. I got in for free thanks to my
unlimited pass, though I did have to pay ¥150 for a towel and a ¥200 deposit
for the shoe and clothing lockers.
The spa had a very wide array of indoor and open-air outdoor
baths. Indoors, there was a 'standard'
(40°C) bath, a Jacuzzi bath, a blue floral bath (for Valentine's Day,) an extra
hot 43°C bath, a cold 18°C bath, and two sauna rooms, a big one with a TV and a
smaller rose-centered one (also for Valentine's Day.) Outdoors, there was another regular bath,
along with a sulfur bath and three individual 'tubs' that looked like big
flowerpots. They also had a very
interesting flat, bumpy area where you could lie down and let hot water run
down your back, as well as a similar seated foot bath. It got a little cold when the wind picked up,
but I found it quite comfortable and relaxing.
I stayed for a couple hours, long enough to try out all the baths and relax
under the night sky, then headed back to the guest house.
I stopped for dinner at a Bali restaurant and had some
really good tacos and naan. Admittedly,
they were Bali-style tacos, but it was still the closest thing to Mexican food
that I've had in almost a year. The
waiter spoke good English and was quite chatty, talking about how he thought
Japan had 'too many rules.' He
encouraged me to come back again and gave me a discount card, and I have to let
them know that I was going back to Iwaki the next morning. It's always a little awkward when that
happens. Back at the guest house, some
of the guests were watching An Education and invited me to join them. It was pretty good, and we noticed an amusing
coincidence: the main characters were named David and Jenny, and so were one of
the guests and his girlfriend. We made a
lot of jokes about how it should've been called "How to Pick up Underage
Girls." And the movie was over, I
packed up everything I could and fell into bed, exhausted.
I had wanted to get back to Iwaki as soon as possible, so
I got up and left as early as I could. I
didn't want to dally at the café or make the long walk to the bakery (neither
of them were really that great anyway,) and none of the nearby fruit stands
were open yet, so the only thing I had for breakfast was a snack bar that I had
brought with me. I made the mistake of
getting on a non-express shinkansen and got into Tokyo around 2 PM, later than
the 1 PM arrival time I had expected. I
grabbed another bowl of ramen for lunch, which helped alleviate (reduce) the
tiredness, headache and eyestrain I had been suffering from on the train. Much refreshed, I caught the limited express
back to Iwaki and returned to my apartment around 6 PM. I felt extraordinarily lazy once I had
finished unpacking my suitcase, so I didn't get around to cleaning house,
cooking my lunches for the week or writing these posts. I did at least get my photos and videos
uploaded on Facebook before taking it easy for the rest of the evening!
Even though my second day of sightseeing wasn't that
great, I still had a really good time overall.
It was a nice town, and there was a lot that I didn't have time to
see. I think that I could have fun going
there again, especially if Soee and I were able to go together, and now I know
about a few things that are probably best avoided. I also hear that Osaka has a very impressive
aquarium with a rare whale shark that I wish I'd remembered. Maybe next time!
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