Today was our last day in Osaka, and our last morning with Jody and Tori! Big old sad face on both counts. 

Tiny was being particularly adorable. (Less so right now, at 10:38, when she won’t go to sleep…)

The morning started with a search for big, fluffy Japanese pancakes (after a search for coin lockers at Namba Station where we cold stash all of our luggage). Logan and Tori were particularly excited about these, and we were having a lot of trouble finding them! The first place had an hour wait, the second was totally out of the fancy premium pancakes, but the third… 

woohoo!

These are not at all typical pancakes. They are like this pancake/soufflé/angel food cake hybrid, and you have to wait for a half-hour to get them, and they are magic! Ami wasn’t so big on the pancakes, but she did really like the side of bacon and eggs we ordered her.

After breakfast, we had to bid adieu to Tori and Jody, who are headed back to Tokyo and then to their home in NYC tomorrow. We are all really sad to see them go! It’s been so wonderful traveling with those guys, and I wish they could come with us to our next stops.

Bye, guys! When is the next trip?

Logan, Ami and I decided to take a couple of hours to check out Osaka Castle. On the way there, Ami made some friends.
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Ami had some decisions to make while we added money to our transit cards.

It was a beautiful day at the castle – clear and brisk.

And somehow this happened. 

They have a time capsule there that’s meant to be opened in 6970 AD, which seems almost impossibly optimistic, with the current state of the world.

Then, back on the subway (Ami is getting to be an old hand at public transit, but she still loves it to bits)

…to pick up our bags in their coin lockers at Namba Station. The biggest lockers are pretty darn big.

From there, we boarded the Kintetsu line for he 40-minute ride to Nara. This wasn’t on one of the super high-speed shinkansen lines, just basically a regular subway train, but the ride was comfortable and smooth. So smooth, in fact, that Ami fell asleep leaning up against her dada.

This nap is probably why bedtime was a bit of a shambles today.

We had no trouble finding our place in Nara. This airbnb is serviceable, but tiny, and kind of cold. The beds here are thankfully WAY better than those we had in the airbnb in Osaka!

Dinner was at a restaurant in the arcade just south of Kintetsu-Nara station. First, we picked up some kakinoha sushi for breakfast tomorrow – it’s sushi preserved in persimmon leaves!

The shopping arcade was nice. Very calm after the insanity of Osaka’s entertainment districts.

For dinner, Logan and I got two dinner sets that came with a lovely array of foods. We each chose eel, and mine had spinach with sesame sauce, pickles, sashimi, rice, and clear soup. Logan’s had a hotpot, pickled vegetables, a vinegary dish with more eel, seaweed, and cucumbers, rice, and clear soup. We ordered Ami an oyakodon, an egg and chicken dish served on rice. She DEMOLISHED it. Hungry girl! I think I can see her outgrowing her 3T clothing on this trip, which is surprising.

And then, back to the airbnb for baths and bed! She’s finally asleep, thank goodness, as is Logan. Hoping for a good night’s sleep for all of us!