With a heavy heart, we prepare to say farewell to the peaceful Island of Miyajima. After sleeping in a bit, we headed down for breakfast. As with yesterday, we were treated to a multi-course breakfast. It began with grapefruit and coffee, followed by yogurt, corn soup, marvelously-thick golden toast, prosciutto and scrambled eggs. What a meal! We later repacked our luggage, and headed to the front desk to check out. Our hostess, Tomoko, bid us farewell at the door. As she had been so kind to us, we gave her a WMU notepad with a small tip inside it.
Cultural Note
Tipping in Japan is not common and is generally reserved for special circumstances. The giving of a personal gift, such as a momento from your home country or business, is highly preferable.
We made our way back to the ferry, meandering through the rows of booths that lined the avenue between the small town and the ferry station. We picked up a few items for our house, such as a wind-chime, made by local artisans and a box of momiji-manjuu, the leaf-shaped sweets made in this area. Along the water's edge, we paused for a few photos. After a short ferry ride, we found ourselves back on the mainland at our train station. The train from Miyajima Port to Hiroshima was packed, even for a Sunday. Many riders were dressed in baseball jerseys of the local Hiroshima baseball team, The Carp.
At Hiroshima station, we stopped at the JR rail counter and exchanged our reserved seats on the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. We soon boarded our train and left the station. Just as the train began to accelerate, we looked out the window and the saw the Hiroshima baseball stadium, packed with sports fans. In moments, the stadium was gone and we settled back for a speedy trip to our next destination.
A few stops later, the Shinkansen arrived at the station in Osaka. As we exited the car, we could tell: we were in a busy station, compared to all of the other Shinkansen stops. The volume of people moving around in the station was unbelievable. Working our way down from the bullet train tracks, we had to navigate to the local 🚉 system, to reach our hotel. On our way past the JR rail counter, Ramona suggested we "fix" our Manaca IC cards, the cards we used on the Tokyo subway. They had stopped working when we moved from the Tokyo rail system to Kyoto, even though a balance of few thousand 💴 (about $10) remained on each card.
The JR attendant checked the cards, made a change, then indicated they would function again. We thanked him and hurried on our way to to the subway. With a working IC card, we could now tap-and-pay for our 🚉 trips again! Taking the subway in Tokyo indoctrinated us to the Japanese 🚉 system. You can get anywhere you need to, so long as you know the following things: 1) what station you're at, 2) what station you're trying to reach and 3) what direction you need to go on each line. We'd repeated this information gathering process in other cities, and it worked just as well here! In no time at all, we found ourselves exiting the first train we took and transferring to another line to get us to our hotel. In just a few minutes, we exited at the right station.
Our hotel was just around the corner from the subway. After depositing our luggage in our rooms, we were off to try and see the sights of downtown Osaka. Ramona had heard of Sankaku Koen (Sankaku Park), a place where the young hipsters hang out - a place to see and be seen. As we walked in the right direction, we passed a Toyku Hands store, an eighth-story department store, selling every manner of goods to make your life convenient. Imagine Target with the flair of IKEA, full of many products and high-functional living wear. "You can find ideas and hints that can make your life more comfortable and enjoyable", or so says the web site. We browsed for quite a while and picked up a few odds and ends, before resuming our quest.
Between us and the park lay an intricate network of shopping streets. Many, many brand name retailers like Guccci, Nike, Puma and others filled several adjacent streets. Between them, smaller food vendor and speciality shops stretched out from every nook and cranny of every building. The way the shop fronts overlapped, it was often difficult to tell where one store ended and the next began.
Ducking out of the maze of shops, we soon found ourselves at the park. It was filled with trendy, hip youth, sporting an impressive array of stylish fashions. After an unknown span of time spent gawking, we paused a moment to try a local delicacy, called takoyaki - small, puffy balls of 🐙 meat in a creamy batter, baked to a golden brown. Heading to another food vendor, Ramona purchased fried chicken, seasoned in the local style.
After a time, we began to make our way back to our hotel. We stopped at a local Tourist Information stand; we learned from previous adventures that the tourist stands could tell us what we'd be interested in seeing and how to do it most efficiently. We took an elevator up to the Tourist Information office and made our enquiries. An English-speaking agent from Sri Lanka was happy to point out a few sites to see, and directed us to an grocery store. As we'd been eating a fair amount of fried snacks, a little vegetable and fresh fruit would do us good.
After visiting a grocery store in the basement of a major department store, we headed for home. We stopped by a local 7-11 to replenish our water supply, and buy an ice cream cone. On the way out the door, we met a young couple from Michigan, by way of Guam, also sightseeing in Osaka.
Back in our hotel room, we entered into our usual routine: Karl uploading pictures from the camera, editing the blog, and Ramona checking our plan of attack for the next day. Efficiency at it's best!
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