Pam & Ros in Japan – Part 2

Join us as we finish our trip – Osaka, Nara, Hamamatsu & Yokohama.
March 2024

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we had a free day to spend in Osaka and
so we decided to visit the um Sky
building on our way to the station we
walked past this Buddhist temple and we
popped inside to have a look
it’s called the honin temple there are a
lot of temples and shrines in this
area I couldn’t resist taking a photo of
this Japanese take on
Tartan this is where we stop for a quick
coffee on our way to the sky
building there’s a lot of building Works
going on around the sky building
building getting ready for the World
Expo in
2025 we were so impressed by the
generosity of the Osaka people and a
young couple who went 15 minutes out of
their way to show us where the building
was the sky building offers spectacular
views all around Osaka
but some people go to a lot of trouble
to take beautiful photos of
themselves you can watch the sunset from
this vantage
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point it’s an optical illusion mirrors
on the ceiling
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we really love Osaka it’s got a
population of 2.7 million people and it
sits around the Yodo
River osaku is a major financial center
and recognized as one of the most
Multicultural and Cosmopolitan cities in
Japan
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the gardens around the Osaka Castle are
spectacular I’m not quite sure what
these people were doing but it looks
like a sort of Japanese version of Tai
Chi or whether they were protesting
something
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it is indeed a beautiful castle and one
of Japan’s most famous
landmarks it played a major role in the
unification of Japan in the 16th century
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the castle has two Moes an inner one and
an outer one and the inner one has two
sections a dry moat and a wet
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moat the castle is built on two raised
platforms of
landfill supported by sheer walls of cut
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rock this is Osaka’s main shopping
center and as well as the major shops
you can also find some curious things
around
here the plastic models of food show you
what’s available on the menu
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and Ros found her Alter
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Ego walking around the narrow streets
you can find some really interesting
shops and also things to look at
We snuck in this selfie to show shimo
yamasan our trusty
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driver over 12200 wild Seeker deer roam
freely around this
park the deer were once considered
sacred and it was a capital offence to
kill
one but after World War II they were
stripped of their statas and instead
considered a natural
Monument we were heading towards the
Tokai region of Japan and our hotel in
hamamatsu but on the way we passed some
beautiful scenery with snowcapped
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mountains the ngoya port is the largest
and busiest port in
Japan this is where the Toyota
Corporation exports most of its cars
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you’ll also find the theme park of Lego
Land
here so
each each ship like this can
delivery um
say maybe 20 30,000
car yeah
so here’s the view from our hotel room
where are we Ros uh we’re at hamatsu
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hamatsu today we’re heading to Yokohama
a trip of about 330
km the shiz waa prefecture produces
about 40% of Japan’s tea
and this particular Farm about 20% of
Japan’s
tea the machine used for harvesting is
operated by two people and it causes a
semicircular shape on top of the
plants the differences in sunlight
temperature and humidity create
different flavors in the teas so each
Farm has a distinct flavor
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the three steps in processing green tea
are steaming rolling and then
drying this old-fashioned Machinery
shows how it’s done it’s very important
to get the leaves fresh from harvesting
to stop any
oxidation this is what they’re trying to
avoid because oxidation would affect the
taste and alter the
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color and as you can see the modern
machinery looks very
different and the chocolate making
process is Main mainly done by
hand just a reminder that the seating
seems much lower than it is in
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Australia we went outside to try and
catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji but we
were looking in the wrong
spot in fact we were looking straight at
it I’d mistaken it for a cloud in the
sky it was that
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high can you see it Pam cuz I can’t from
here oh
yeah gu
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we finally had a chance to get a closer
look and it’s spectacular
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we took several photos waiting for the
clouds to
move it’s about 4,000 M high and last
erupted about 300 years
ago the great Buddha of kakura is a
large bronze statue measuring over 13 M
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High the great Buddha dates from about
1252 the two main religions of Japan are
Shintoism and
Buddhism there are Buddhist temples and
Shinto
shrines it was interesting to see some
wle at the bottom of the
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Buddha you can actually climb up inside
the Buddha unfortunately a lot of people
have left
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graffiti the great Buddha has left a
lasting impression on
us and the Buddha has big shoes to
fill the Prince Hotel in Yokohama was
the tallest one we’ stayed in we were
were on the 32nd Floor it was quite
luxurious with some interesting shops
and great architectural features like
the dome in the middle of the
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building from a room we had a bird’s eye
view over
Yokohama this would be the last night we
spent in Japan cuz tomorrow we leave for
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Australia this is our spectacular hotel
in Yokohama
and we’re on floor
30 quite high
up it’s got a great view I’m not sure
exactly where Tokyo is but it’s the
airport is half an hour drive
away that’s a bridge over there there’s
a
bridge two Bridges it’s just
amazing and then down here we even have
the bullet train going
past the bullet train station and we
have a
cemetery that’s just spectacular view
isn’t it Ros yes it is this is probably
the best
hotel I don’t know how to do
it there we are there we are I’d love
you to open the door to the bathroom
this is the uh the module
yeah the Step Up module this is a step
up
module this has been this module has
been in quite a few B uh
hotels yes quite a few hotels they just
dropped the module into the
building and again we’ve got the special
toilet and the warm seat so that’s it
was sad to say goodbye to our traveling
buddies especially our tour guide hero
we learned so much from hero including
some words oh
Goos which is good morning konichiwa of
course have a good day and arig thank
you some other interesting facts
spaghetti originally came from China and
taken to Italy by Marco Polo Ramen was
also from China but tempura was from the
Dutch also the Japanese like to queue up
and in Osaka they keep to the
right and because of their diet based
mainly on fish there are very few
children wearing glasses and the rate of
dementia is very low in Japan
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