Day 6 - "If this was in the US, it would be a drug den." Dave, talking about the underground tunnels/shops/restaurants attached to the subways - and he's not wrong.

2023-05-23

This morning we had a small relief (finally!) from the rain, but it wasn't long-lasting. We ate breakfast at home and then packed up and made our way downtown to Sapporo station where we stashed our bags (lockers, again, FTW). We found a Starbucks because it's the only coffee shop open earlier than 9am (and the coffee is much better here than at home). Dave found a little bakery next door (local, thank goodness - can't have too much corporate America while on vaca) and had a little blueberry cinnamon roll-thumbs up!

Enter our old friend and foe, RAIN, so we tried to stay covered under the outdoor covered arcade again, and then slowly made our way to Ramen Row for lunch. We chose a highly reviewed place, but found out they didn't have any vegetarian broth for Tsana, so Dave ordered a bowl for himself while Tsana watched, longingly, and Dave cackled as he ate in front of her (kidding). It was the best ramen he's had so far. After that we found another ramen shop across the alley with clam broth for Tsana (we've determined that Tsana would have an exceptionally difficult time eating out here if she didn't do the seafood thing, once in a while).

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RAIN - we hate you. Let's go to the airport early, where it's dry and warm, so we did. We found that a large chunk of Sapporo is underground. There is a huge concourse that runs for miles underneath the city where you can find shops and restaurants. Its extremely well lit and clean, not something we've seen anywhere else. We were able to walk down there all the way back to our locker where we found our stuff, safe and sound, and made the long journey back to the airport.


A few hours later we finally landed in Osaka. We landed around 7, so it was basically rush hour, with everyone either going home from work, or out to the bar. A nice welcoming to the city was a lovely businessman falling asleep on Tsana's shoulder on the subway - he was wicked tired, so she let him sleep. The weather for Osaka was supposed to be cloudy, but warm, yet as soon as we landed it changed to you-know-who (not kidding) RAIN, and commence pouring for the rest of the night. At this point, let's just say it's been 5 days of rain...and normally, we'd be cool with it, but when walking around all day with limited time in each city, we are looking up anti-rain meditations or the like to do.

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In Osaka, we are staying at a Ryokan, which is an traditional Japanese- style hotel where you sleep on the floor on a futon, and the floor is lined with tatami mats (see out view in the above picture). No shoes in the room, a separate bathroom, and a cute little desk area made the room cozy. They also gave you a robe to wear around, which was very comfy. On the agenda for later that night: Onsen.

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Osaka is known for its street food, but that generally means meat, so we had a hard time finding something for the both of us. We finally found this tiny Thai place that was packed, so we went in, and then left. All of sudden, a cute old Thai woman came out, grabbed Dave's hand, and there was no turning back. She led him into this alley and into a back "secret" area (which really meant half-storage area/half birthday party room- hence the balloons above our heads) and sat us to eat, insisting that "this is part of the same place." We shared some stir-fry and Dave ate some grilled chicken and pork roses (not sure what that means).

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When we returned back to the Ryokan, Tsana headed up to the Onsen, a Japanese public bath, where you actually bathe there, and sit in a hot-tub like thing (supposed to be a natural hot spring, but you know, we're in the middle of the city, here). Pretty relaxing and no one else was there, which was nice.

On the agenda for tomorrow: Osaka in the morning, Kyoto in the evening.