Day 21: Osaka

 Today began with a few bus rides to Minoo park. It’s a gorgeous walk full of waterfalls, gorgeous trees, and rivers through a valley. It was a really lovely walk and I ran into some really nice Japanese people. When I was talking about how pretty the leaves were this Japanese lady came and gave me a cookie. It was really cute. 

After the hike I bought some fried maple leaves. These little old ladies were battering and frying them up just outside the park. They are barely sweet, but very crunchy. Overall really interesting, but quite good. 

As I finished my hike, it began to rain. I took the subway to Namba and explored the maze of underground tunnels filled with shops and food and everything you can imagine. There is an entire city under the ground and another city in the top floors of the vast multitudes of malls. It’s fascinating. They really know how to utilize space properly. 

I tan into a Totoro store, and found Totoro! Which was fun and exciting, I enjoyed wandering around looking at all the shops and funny things. 

I also visited a museum of the famous prints called ukiyo-e from the 1800s. It was really beautiful to see the cool prints, especially the famous wave 🌊 print. 

I wandered through more department stores before heading back to the hotel to meet with Dean and Jenny for dinner. We got some delicious katsu and picked up a few cakes and spent most of the evening chatting and eating, and enjoying our time. 

In the middle of the night a storm and through; and lightning hit the building causing all the lights in our buildings to turn on. I was very confused and cranky, and of course called dad so he could fix it from the US 😝 but really just to complain. Then I put on my eyemask and got a bit more sleep.