Osaka Castle (and some craft beer)

Today was another travel day. After breakfast we made our way to the train station and took the rapid service from Kyoto to Osaka. Pretty uneventful trip taking only two hours.

After arriving we checked in and headed out to find some lunch. We visited a sushi train and spotted an unusual item on the menu... Whale skin... We ummed and ahhhed over the morality of trying this, and eventually settled on a "when in Japan", and "they didn't kill the whale just for us" position and ordered two small pieces. In hindsight it wasn't worth it. The whale was tough, chewy and tasteless. We think they're better off swimming in the ocean.

After lunch we went for a walk around the 60m tall Osaka castle. On our way we spotted some Sakura, but the trees are definitely past their full bloom with the white and pink petals being replaced by their spring leaves. The trees lining the canal would have been completely white a few days ago but are starting to look more green/brown. We were very lucky with our timing to see them in full bloom elsewhere.

We did notice some other blossoming trees as well, but we weren't sure if they were cherry trees as the flowers looked very different. After some research, it turns out that yes these are also cherry trees, and that the types of cherry tree with more petals on their blossoms often bloom a week or two later than the most common ones, which have only 5 petals.

After a wander around Osaka castle we headed to the area around Dotonbori where we met up with Cass' parents, Freddy and Kim, for a couple of crafty beers. Afterwards we made our way over to Shake Shack - we had their burgers about 6 years ago in New York and Vela hasn't stopped raving about them since. So when we saw they were in Osaka we had to have another taste!Read more