On our last evening in Kyoto, we visited a temple with a great many Torri gates. It was calm, with only a couple of dozen other visitors. The full moon made it even more special.
Tuesday morning, before leaving town, I made a pilgrimage to Walnut, a fabulous yarn store. I wanted to finish my Kyoto mittens first, since I bought the purple yarn at Walnut three years ago.
This time, I opted for a yak-silk blend with a wonderful sheen. I decided against the light grey in the photo. I’ll pair the ones I bought with something I get in Victoria.
We took a slow train to Osaka for 400 yen each. The journey might have taken 10 minutes less than the bullet train, and we avoided several sets of staircases.
in Osaka, we headed to a popular area for dinner and entertainment. It was loud, crowded and different from other places we’ve visited. In other cities, there have been loudspeakers telling people that eating while you walk is not allowed — in an area of street food. You’re expected to eat in front of the stall.
Gotchas are very popular, and some stores are devoted to these machines thar dispense capsules with toys. Similarly, there are stores with just claw machines. Unlike our last visit, we did not see any with handcuffs. Anita secured a four inch long stuffed platypus, and was thrilled with her success.
We visited a few arcades hoping for some coin pushers. These arcades were several storeys high, and a few had coin pusher games on the second or third floor. Gambling is illegal in Japan, so the machines consumed and rewarded tokens. There were people like Anita that had a drinking cup size contain with a few hundred yen of tokens, and there were others whose tokens filled a four by eight by four container.
After half an hour of sensory overload, we headed home. Tomorrow: Super Mario Cart World in Universal Studios Japan.
Juliette Knits 