The trip was actually consistent with our expectation, we knew that there’s nothing spectacular at Osaka, just an easy-going city, cheaper and less fashionable than Tokyo. It did turn out that way, eating is significantly cheaper at Osaka for the average restaurant. Shopping is sometime cheaper too. Thanks to a friend’s reference, we stayed at the very central and convenient Shinsaibashi [心斎橋] area. We could basically walk around the 3km radius and have access to everything that Osaka has to offer, between Namba and Umeda subway stations. We stayed at the Hearton hotel which is a short block away from the underground city.

We visited two touristic attractions of Osaka: the Osaka Castle Museum [大阪城] and the world-famous Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. The Osaka Castle is a typical Japanese castle style similar to the more authentic and famous Himeji Castle [姫路城]. I feel that the park surrounding it is equally interesting. We’ve been to other big aquariums before, at San Francisco and Shanghai, what is special with the Kaiyukan is its gigantic tank which is the central attraction, with two big Whale Sharks in there, and a whole lot of deep sea species that I can’t remember their names, sharks, hammerhead, stingray, etc.

Actually what we enjoyed most at Osaka is the friendly Shinsaibashi-suji shopping street. We basically live there during our entire trip duration, passing by and eating by every day and night. It strikes me to see how the young japanese girls dress despite a not-so-warm Winter time: ultra-short skirts/pants, fancy hairs, impeccable make-ups and mostly very high heel shoes. Not as sexy and fancy as Tokyo girls, but still quite a show for a tourist like me… Mary has had her own time in the numerous drug stores and female accessories stores, she could literally spend a day in each one of them! That was it for Osaka.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the grayish-ness of Kyoto. We took JR train to Kyoto and only spent half a day there, visiting 3 temples: the iconic golden pavilion Kinkaku-ji Temple [金閣寺], the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine [北野天満宮], and the impressive Kiyomizu Temple [清水寺]. Other than that we also had an okonomi yaki for lunch, which is a kind of DIY japanese pizza… it is just funny to try but doesn’t really taste anything special.

Moving around in Kyoto is just inconvenient, I heard people walking around Kyoto but I feel that it’s too far away between each interesting temple/shrine to make that attempt. We took the daily bus fare (very limited subway coverage there), visited North and East of Kyoto. There’s nothing in between, not even young people to see… We were lucky  not having to stay there at night and to endure boredom. I’m sure that my half day trip is not making justice to such a famous and glorious city, I’m giving myself a goal to return to Kyoto again during the sakura blossom season, with more time to visit it, and maybe have a more comprehensive plan…

That’s it for this trip, we didn’t plan so much, just went spontaneously and sniffed around. It wasn’t bad, we’ll return again in the future.

Click here to see the entire Osaka and Kyoto albums, and the portrait album.

To be honest I didn’t expect a lot from Shanxi, not hearing anything nice from there ever. The only thing people keep saying about Shanxi is the mines, the miners and the boss of the miners [煤老板] who are insanely rich and dumb. In fact I didn’t even know the capital of Shanxi until I have the flight ticket in hands.

What I read in magazine is that Shanxi is a living museum of the Tang [唐朝] and Song [宋朝] dynasties, which are two of the most prosperous dynasties in China history. Unfortunately at the end of Song dynasty is hundred years of long lasting war with the various northern tribes, until it was entirely taken over by the Yuan dynasty [元朝]. That pretty much ended Shanxi’s famed period.

What is left of Shanxi today is a poor province with only one type of natural resource as revenu, coal mine. Not much else as economy, not much agriculture, no trade, no port, no hub. They might be able to count on touristic industry but transportation isn’t fully developped yet based on my observation.

Anyway, pessimistic as I am, we did have a great trip with all those guys. We took lots of photos, had fun in hotel room (that was memorable), and saw amazing historical heritage of ancian time. For 4 days short trip I feel that we’ve gotten much more than what’s worth. On the bus returning to airport at last day, we even had a karaoke and sung for 3 hours, for free!

You can see the entire album here.