This is a typical hotel room. We were warned they were small, but I didn’t find them as such.
No TV. It was there, but most of them had no English speaking channels. We found out the pope had died while we were in Japan.
This is a story in itself!! These toilets are made by Toto, Ltd.
These special toilets — found EVERYWHERE in Japan, including public restrooms — are called washlets. In public bathrooms, they make music, bird sounds, or toilet-flushing sounds so that if you need to grunt, groan or fart, the people next to you will not hear it. There is a volume button for this also.
Plus the seats are heated — low or high. When getting into my room, I put it on high every time.
Call me crazy, but once I got home, sitting on that cold toilet seat put me through the roof. It never used to do that before.
Plus they have a warm water spray to spray (clean) your butt and your nether-regions up front. That has a pressure gauge of your choice.
They have scientifically measured the angle needed of the water spray to clean your butt, and it is 43 degrees. Who knew!!
They cost only $250 and I can’t wait to get one. The problem is they require an electric plug-in and my toilet room doesn’t have one!!
An example f Rumi’s accent. I thought it was bad until I bought a Viator tour and that little girl’s English was almost unintelligible!
Osaka
Another mode of transportation.
Tourist info.
Catching the Shinkansen or bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka (Japan’s 3rd largest city.). The train station is huge. The trains run on time — to the minute. You cannot easily bring your luggage so when the group took the bullet train, our large suitcases were taken by truck.
The train showed up, but it needed to be cleaned, so we stood there for 10 minutes while it was cleaned. From the signs, you can see there still is not a lot of English being used.
You can only tell we are going 120 MPH by seeing the fence and telephone poles whiz by.
I know “they” say it’s so easy, but I still find it quite stressful.
A tour of the Kuromon Market with lots of vendors selling fresh food and fast-food Japanese-style.
This was a great meal for cheap. But what we didn’t realize until too late is that the little black trays were our plates and we were supposed to take the fried rice from the serving trays to our plate and eat from that. Instead we leaned over and ate directly from the fried rice serving tray!! Ugly Americans!! The shrimp with mayo was delicious and stayed warm by being on the hot plate in the center of the table.
People everywhere!! Music, sounds, Spiderman showing off for a little girl, tourist boats, crabs and cows as ads, teenie boppers so excited to see the new generation after BTS band on the outdoor screens.
Osaka Castle built as a display of power in the 16th century. Part of the moat had water, but this part just became a lawn — not much protection from invaders.
This was the view of Osaka from the top level of the castle. The gold fish was interesting. I wonder who shines them.
The display to explain the history had these 3D people showing up in the diarama.
What an outfit and what a headpiece.
They love their matcha. It’s green tea leaves turned into a powder and it’s bitter. I’ve never seen a dish serving food made out of wood with dovetails.
The view from our hotel at night. This was the bullet train (or maybe the JT — Japan train) racing through the city.
