First time going to the Kansai Region

I lived in Japan for two and a half years already. During this time, I was only exploring the Kanto region. The furthest I went to is probably Nikko in Tochigi or the Mt. Fuji area in Kanagawa and Shizuoka. This time, I decided to spend my early winter break (though its still peak fall) in the Kansai region. My girlfriend is visiting me from Manila so we decided that she takes a flight to Kansai Airport as an entry and exit through Narita Airport after we go back to Chiba. We spent 4 days in Osaka, Himeji, Kyoto, and Nara, then spent the rest of her 10-day vacation in Tokyo and Chiba.

I left my house in Chiba at 5 AM to catch a Shinkansen to Osaka. It's my first time riding the bullet train. When I was a kid, I really liked trains. Though trains kinda felt boring after I experienced working in Manila where the commute situation is really bad. I almost cursed riding the MRT to my workplace every single day and trains became one of the things I really hate. Recently, after I moved to a nice workplace. I really liked going to the office even if we work from home because the people are really nice even for an awkward person like me. And I just realized that I began to like riding trains again.

The ride from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka station is around two hours and thirty minutes. There are trains that stop on all stations where the ride gets longer so be careful when you book. You can also book a non-reserved seat (which is what I did on my way to Osaka) so you can ride any train you want as long as it is within the day indicated in the ticket. It was sunny so I was able to see Mt. Fuji though it's the time in the morning where the ice from the cap melts and gets into the air so the picture looks cloudy.

And several other mountains like Mt. Ibuki which is really cool with all the snow covering it.

I arrived at our meeting place one hour early and we had a hard time seeing each other because we were on different stations in Namba. We placed our baggage in two coin lockers and decided to tour the main Osaka area. We went to Dotonbori and explored Osaka castle's vicinity. There were many people inside the castle so we decided not to go inside.

After we ate lunch, we went to our AirBnb. It's a hotel made of cargo crates. It was really nice for its price. I actually can't believe the price when we booked it. We took a reset and went back to see Dotonbori in the evening. It has different vibes than in the morning. There's more people and the illumination brings out a new color of the city.

The next day, we went to Himeji. Before I left Manila 2 years ago, we built a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Himeji Castle so I really wanted to visit this place even if I didn't really know the full history behind it.

Himeji was chill, there were less people here and the vibes were really nice. We went on Google Maps to look for a place to eat lunch and we found a high rated Tonkatsu restaurant near the station. The line was long and its just mostly locals eating there, the non-translated menu probably intimidate tourists away from this gem.

After lunch, we went to the castle. It was so white even from afar. The castle grounds were huge. Although the inside of the castle feels empty, we still enjoyed roaming around the corridors and exploring different rooms.

There was one area outside that had some cherry blossoms blooming during the peak of fall.

After a while, we decided to leave the main castle and have a one last look.

We exited the castle premises and checked the gardens outside. The peak of fall can be seen in this area. It was sunset so the orange sunlight compliments the Japanese maple leaves.

We were supposed to make a stop in Kobe, but we were so tired so we decided to go back to our BnB.

The next morning we woke up early to avoid crowds in Kyoto's famous Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. We were warned that Kyoto is a very crowded city but we experienced the opposite. It was the first week after Japanese and Chinese government officials had some exchange of words resulting to China issuing a warning to its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan. We were able to take pictures freely in the forest and enjoy the scenery. We heard that it can get to a shoulder to shoulder situation in this place because of over tourism.

After the bamboo forest, we took a train to the Golden Temple. There were many people here but still, you can move freely and take proper pictures without having a random person in the frame. Still not like what I heard from friends and read online.

We went to central Kyoto just to see the situation since we noticed that there's not too much people in the places we've been to. If only we knew in advance that this would be the best time to tour Kyoto, we should've extended our stay a bit more.

After that we decided to head to Nara. Nara has more nature and probably needs multiple days to properly enjoy this prefecture. We went to the famous deer park and it's so big that we weren't able to explore everything with the remaining half of the day we have. We tried to feed the deer resulting to me getting harassed by one of them.

The fall foliage is peaking in almost the entire park, not like in Osaka where it was almost over.

We reached the giant gate and the temple when it started to get dark.

After that, we decided to head back to the station and eat dinner.

The next day we rode the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. Even if it's my second time, I still enjoyed the ride.

That's the end of the trip. It was a really nice trip. Osaka definitely has a better vibe than Tokyo for me. I never felt the feeling of acting like what the public wants you to or the feeling of you're always being watched every time I walk around Tokyo. It's hard to explain but probably people who lived in Tokyo would know. People talk louder in Osaka and seem more friendly. But you can also see more people breaking rules like beating the red pedestrian lights and there's this one guy that threw his onigiri packaging in the streets which divided into multiple plastics flying around the street. Note that these people are Japanese and not foreigners. Maybe that's the downside of having those vibes 😂