It rained overnight but cleared by morning. Google maps has failed us- worked great yesterday with step by step directions for walking and the subway. Today it has switched to Japanese! Apparently it does this a few days after you arrive and I’m unable to change it back despite checking all settings. Apple Maps will have to do.
Today’s destination is the Kuromon Fish Market, which the guidebooks said was a place where restaurants buy their seafood. However it actually is a market comprised of a huge area, several blocks long, covered like usual, of small shops and stalls selling very fresh seafood for consumption. You pick what you want and they grill it for you. I later read that the real auction is at the Central Osaka Fish Market but takes place at 4am and most people cannot get there as public transportation doesn’t start that early. Apparently similar markets in Tokyo have also been transformed into consumer seafood stands. We got our fill of the best grilled unagi (eel) I have ever had, my favorite at any Japanese restaurant. It was buttery smooth, melt in your mouth good. We saw fish and other things we had never seen before, though nothing was exotic or made me cringe because they are extinct. That was a relief!
We picked up some sweets-a delicious mochi filled with red bean paste and a perfect strawberry in the middle. That leads me to mention about the fruit here. The apples are monstrous, so big they barely fit in my hand. All the fruit is picture perfect, uniform with not a blemish and looking like wax fruit. My first thought was they must be grown with a ton of chemicals but reading online I learned that Japanese farms are small and the government has very strict standards for quality so farmers spend a lot of effort to grow the very best quality and appearance to exact standards WOW! The strawberry in my mochi was sweet, firm and tasted so good.
It was only noon by the time we had had our fill so after much deliberation, decided to the Museum of Ethnology. The deliberation because it was over an hour away by train and walking, but it is located far north of central Osaka and we thought would be interesting to get out of the tourist area. It really was off the beaten path but we enjoy seeing where normal people live when we travel so on we went. Despite a brief hiccup on our train routing where we had to disembark at a stop that Google maps showed we stay on, we did ok. A helpful European couple and rail station worker helped redirect us. An hour out of the city center and it was still densely populated with older high rise and low apartments, making us feel grateful for the wide open spaces we live in. It reminded me of Hong Kong, and other Asian cities. China in comparison has much newer construction and more public spaces like parks and squares. We saw kids playing sports on schoolyard artificial turf.
The trains are packed with young people, mostly 20-30 year olds. I think getting around for the elderly must be challenging. At our stop in Suita, we were surprised to see a small bamboo forest alongside the main road.
We walked for a half an hour through a lovely area that we later learned was the site for Expi 70. We didn’t have time to fully explore the Japanese Garden, ponds and cultural park but saw a ferris wheel, very odd Tower of the Sun and stone paths. Everything was in good but not “tourist” shape. The entire area is a huge amount of open space with grass, trees and nature!
This museum was a Whoa moment. It is the largest museum of ethnology and research institution in the world with over 345,000 artifacts. The cavernous rooms have life-size objects from all parts of the world, depicting daily life and culture. The displays are not in glass cases but out in the open- instruments, tools, costumes, cooking implements, boats, carriages….It is awe inspiring and made us wonder how they acquired such an extensive collection. We spent way too much time trying to figure out their audio guide and finally gave up and just wandered. It was unlike any museum we have ever seen and a lesson on the cultural history and lifestyles of every country. Ray was particularly astonished at the collection in the history of guitars. This is not a place where you go just once; it needs multiple visits to absorb.
We trekked back to Yamaha Station to find the trains were not running- horrors, can this be possible in Japan where everything runs perfectly and on time? We were directed to the monorail and then subway where we arrived back close to the hotel. We grabbed a quick bowl of ramen from the same unnamed place we had our first dinner, thus ending our stay in Osaka.Total miles walked today, 8.5.