Day 10 – Osaka to Tokyo

12,901 steps taken – 413.44 km travelled

Travel days are always long but exciting. This morning was a nice and relaxed start, with alarms set for 8 o’clock, but really no rush to do anything. Checkout was at 10, and Drew and I were joined by Brad for some last chance temple hunting in Osaka! We ended up with 2 new stamps in the book, and one add on sheet at an unmanned temple nearby. During our temple hunt, we came across a modern building where I spotted heaps of golden Buddha statues on the walls. People were walking in and out freely, so we thought we’d have a quick look. It turns out that it was a church, and a session was happening as we were walking through. As we were looking at the statues on the walls, we has a priest rush up after us wanting to give us information about what we were looking at. It told us of a project the church was doing and how they were aiming to collect 1000 Buddha statues in the next 100 years. We noticed all of the empty notches and lotus flowers where the statues would eventually sit. This room will be absolutely stunning when it’s all done!

It was super warm this morning, so we cut our exploring a little short, got some snacks and went back to the hotel lobby to wait for the others to leave at 12 for a bullet train to Tokyo! A couple of local trains later and we were on our way. I used this time to catch up on yesterdays blog, so tonight I should actually be up to date! It was an easy as ride, and before we knew it we were at the lobby of the new hotel. These rooms are magic! I was expecting another shoebox situation, but I’m happy to say that The B Asakusa hotel has beautifully large rooms, and a prime location barely a minutes walk to the nearest subway station. There’s also a temple literally next door, so I’m keen to see if we can collect a stamp from there in the morning!

Once we were settled, we met up with Sue and Jed again and headed to grab some grub. Another Japanese curry! Delicious (oishii)! The evening was then spent just a few doors down at a large Sega arcade, where we played games and spent too much money on gatchapons and claw machines. Tokyo is nuts. It’s busy and loud. I’m keen to spend a little time in the outskirts and see a less hectic side to the city! Tomorrow we’ve cancelled plans to head out to the fox village, so we have a fairly slow morning, with the Team Labs Borderless light museum in the afternoon, and then off to do some exploring around that area! It should be a great day!