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Japan Camera Roll – Part 1

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Osaka

– A glorious welcome to Japan, and how to almost cry at how good a bowl of ramen is.

Billiken, the God of Things-As-They-Ought-To-Be. He’s everywhere in Osaka. Also, on our first night, we stumbled into a crazy part of town and ate some exquisite ramen.
The glorious bowl, in all its delicious goodness!
The store fronts in this part of town were great. I can’t remember what this store was about (A restaurant, I think?), but it had many sumo.
Some of the displays made things quite obvious. What does the restaurant with the giant puffer fish outside serve? (Hint: It’s puffer fish)
Billiken, in all shapes, sizes, and colours!
This giant pink tower. I can’t remember its purpose, but it was quite eye-catching. Also in this photo, the name of the neighbourhood: Shinsekai.
On our way to Osaka Castle, it was kind of crowded, but not super dooper crowded (more of that later).
One of Natalie’s old students, Megumi, took us around Osaka and dropped us off at the castle. It was a fabulous day. Here she is with Natalie.
From a distance, it didn’t really look like the castle could withstand much. Then we were introduced to the walls.
The castle!
Just outside the gate to the castle, someone had attached this bird of prey to this stick. We weren’t the only ones taking photos.
Check out those doors!

This old guy looked like he could put someone in their place.
On our way out from the castle grounds, we stumbled into a shrine, and got some very early glimpses of the fact that cherry blossom season was upon us.
Some of the guard statues are so whimsical!
The shrine grounds also had this delightful rock garden.
The description (maybe?) of the rock garden. It was aesthetically pleasing, even though we couldn’t read it.

Natalie, outside the breakfast place. We really loved going there.
The spot we ate breakfast every day we were in Osaka was charming. It was owned (and worked) by a handful of old Japanese characters. It played exclusively golden oldies rock and roll. It had this beautiful old coffee grinder, which looked like it had been in use for decades.
Our first Shinkansen!
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Hi, we’re Natalie and Jackson: a trans-continental couple who met in New York City in 2013 and haven’t been apart since. We got married in June 2015 and have been traveling around the world together.

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