Welcome to Day 8: Part 3 of my Japan & Korea 2017 travel series (the final part of Day 8)! I had to split Day 8 into 3 pieces, because we did a lot in one day. And, as with the previous post (Day 8: Part 2), I have a lot of photos from this part of the day that I want to share with all of you. After having spent some time with the deer of Nara and the very old temple there, we decided to see one more place since we had more time left over than we thought we would. So, we got on the train again and headed to the very famous city of Osaka!

Note: This post will be a little shorter than the others, since it was the end of the day, and we didn’t stay in Osaka as long as the other places. Also, I was quite ready for bed by the time it got dark (but more on that at the end of the post)! The first thing we did after getting off the train in Osaka (and I still can’t believe that we made it there) was to go see the Osaka Castle! And it was quite amazing! It was definitely the largest castle that we had seen in Japan so far, and we were in awe.

Despite this, we were a little too tired and hot to go inside (especially since we had seen the interiors of other castles). So we took a bit of a break in the shade of the castle, and looked up at it while catching our breaths. Plus, it’s a lot to take in!

Alright, maybe we rested and took a selfie or two with some cute fox ears (since we were still excited about having been to Fushimi Inari that morning), haha!

Once we had enjoyed some cold drinks from one of those handy dandy vending machines, we made our way into the downtown area! And I have to say…downtown Osaka definitely feels different from Tokyo, or any other city that I’ve been to. The atmosphere and appearance of it is very unique, and we had to go see the famous crab of Osaka (which is a moving robotic crab that decorates the entrance to the restaurant Kanidoraku honten Osaka)!

Sadly, Kanidoraku honten Osaka was a bit above our budget, so we continued on, in search of another place that we could eat at. And despite being unable to eat at Kanidoraku honten Osaka, we were still quite happy with our find! I forget the name of the restaurant that we did eat at, but I do remember that we were very happy to have a view of the river, as well as the very large contraption outside of the largest Don Quijote store we had ever seen (though the contraption was out of order)!

Once we were finished dinner, we then (very slowly) made our way back through the downtown area and back to the train station so that we could head back to Tokyo! We had a fantastic time in Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka, but were also happy to be heading back to Tokyo, because our little Airbnb apartment had begun to feel a bit like a home! I tried to stay awake on the bullet train, but ended up sleeping until we arrived back in Tokyo, one of my favourite cities on this planet. We took the familiar train home, got off at our station, and once we got to our apartment, went straight to bed!

Please stay tuned for my next Japan & Korea 2017 Trip blog post in which I’ll be talking all about my parents’ last full day in Japan, and how we spent this last precious day wandering Tokyo, and accidentally (and quite happily) stumbling upon a matsuri (a festival held at a temple), something which we had hoped to experience on that trip!

ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY ME! PLEASE ASK ME FOR PERMISSION IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO USE THEM ANYWHERE. THANK YOU FOR READING THIS POST ABOUT MY JAPAN AND KOREA 2017 ADVENTURES! ALSO, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND/OR SOME OF YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES IN JAPAN, ASIA, OR ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD, IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!