Japan, April 2015 - OSAKA;

PART 1

I was incredibly humbled to visit Japan in my birth month earlier last year,
and even witness the Takayama Spring Festival on my Birthday.

The Festival itself was very nearly cancelled due to rain,
however a seemingly miraculous break in the grey clouds tore apart the sky to reveal
a bright azure backdrop which signalled the beginning of the celebrations.

While immensely overdue, I'm planning to retrieve the backlog of photographs
that are sitting in SD cards or hard drives from my trips in recent years to some wonderful places.

I adore travelling, or perhaps more the experience of being immersed in
new places and seeing the world from a completely different perspective.

The transportation itself (mostly flying) often fills me with doubts,
but it's a grateful feeling when you finally reach your destination.

I've been very lucky to visit some of my favourite places so far in my life,
and hope to see even more of our home planet.

OSAKA

We were in Osaka very briefly, barely a full day, one night, and one morning train ride off to Kyoto.

But even in such a short time, and not the most ideal weather,
it still left an impression on me and I hope we get to visit there again.

As soon as we arrived at Kansai airport, we got two tickets for the shuttle bus to our hotel. 

It was nearing lunch time, so we approached the nearby Yodobashi Camera department store
which has a whole top floor dedicated to food stalls and restaurants full of enticing cuisines and dishes.

We went for a Japanese-style American place with hotplate meat dishes. 

It was the best first impression of a city through a meal ever (if that's a weird thing to say). 

The food is simply incredible everywhere you go in Japan, it seems!
There are a wide variety of different cuisines, and many specific dietary requirement friendly places.

I ordered this rather radioactive looking melon soda

Afterwards we wandered about outside in the rain to look around the city, 

though we didn't have enough time to visit the castle it was still an impactful visit.

Osaka bombardes you with neon lights, advertisements, smells of seafood snacks, 

and in our case the rain. 

The Glico man~

 There will be some very tempting stalls selling the giant crab claws that
smell great as you walk past, but honestly it was a bit too expensive for the amount that you get. 

It's also difficult to eat while standing in the downpour; 

we huddled at the entrance of the nearby bookstore and slowly regretted our decision 

to pay equivalent to S$10 for this (I think!).

The quirky branding is everything

These are all the ones I managed to snap on my Pentax K-x, 

there's a few more on my phone that I've still not edited! 

Will be much more diligent at editing photos as soon as possible after taking them..

Next time I'll bring you around parts of Nara, Arashiyama, and Fushimi Inari Taisha. 

The photos from Kyoto are disappointingly limited as the weather was also very rainy, 
I blame the April showers!

But I'll be sure to dig up the good ones ♡

Thank you for reading~