For our last day in Nara, I once again got up early to go check out another historical site in Nara park. Today’s destination, Kasugataisha Shrine. The shrine in one form or another dates back to 768 CE, and is the family shrine of the Fujiwara family.  The Fujiwara were incredibly important in Japanese history, and were the imperial regents for centuries.

Their shrine is known for, among other things, the stone lanterns lining the forest paths leading up to it.

Of course, it’s still Nara, so there’s still deer everywhere.

Unfortunately, the main buildings were closed at 8 AM when I was there, but I still got to wander around and look at things from the outside.

All too soon it was time to return for the last day of the conference.  We finished up at noon, and I went to find Leigh so we could try one last local specialty – persimmon leaf wrapped sushi.

It was good sushi.  Wrapped in a leaf. Honestly, the fact that the fish were all lightly brined made it more distinctive than the leaves themselves.

And then it was time to return to Osaka. The last time we visited the city, the entire place was basically shut down for a typhoon warning.  You can read all about that surreal experience here.

So this time, we were REALLY hoping to experience a little more of the city.

This photo should make it pretty obvious where we were staying:

Those HVAC units are REALLY distinctive, aren’t they?  Oh, and also there’s the famous Ferris-wheel-equipped Don Quixote store, which puts us right next to the Dotonbori canal in the heart of the city.  It was a great central location to explore from.

We had had great food tour experiences in Bangkok and Prague previously, so we had booked another one here in the evening.  We arrived at about two, so that gave us a few hours to just bonk around and see what we could see.  We wandered into a stationary store, and up to a garden on the roof of a shopping mall.

From there we made our way through Denden town (electronics, pop culture, and maid cafes) to Shinsekai, an older neighborhood that we had visited on our previous trip. It has a famous tower that we really should actually ascend one of these trips.  Oh well, reason to go back, I guess.

The last time we were here there were a LOT of closed storefronts, but we managed to find a place where we could sit on an oil drum in a puddle and eat takoyaki. It sure would be ironic if the food tour took us back to the same place, wouldn’t it?

We arrived at the rendezvous point to wait for our tour guide, an affable expat from Boston who took us straight to… an udon shop. Whew, irony averted.

THEN we went to the takoyaki place. Because of course we did.  But the takoyaki was just as good as we remember. And I had a drink marked “manly plum,” which was pretty good, even though I have questions about the translation. (Or the ingredients.)

For the rest of the tour we wandered around the Shinesekai neighborhood at night, gawping at the lights and stuffing ourselves silly.  It was great.

This was on a shelf at one of the restaurants.  I don’t know what it is, so please don’t ask.

Replete with delicious food, and having already had a more rewarding time in Osaka than the entirety of our previous visit to the city, we headed past the canal to bed.