Escondido Abroad

(Look at that souvenir bag! He could fit in it himself, if need be). Our last day in Japan! I will end with a few closing remarks and the remaining traveler reflections from the trip.  Some had a slow morning and enjoyed breakfast views from the 15th floor... while many went out early to complete last minute shopping and explore Osaka further.  (Ms. Ruch really liked this bucket hat, but alas, it was too big. 😓) Ms. Ruch and I grabbed one more round of Milk tea and then got our last taste of the street food from Osaka: Kobe beef sushi and a Kobe beef sushi rice bowl. If I could give one piece of advice about eating street food: trash cans in public spaces in Japan are not a thing. In many places you'll be hard pressed to find a trash can even in a bathroom (the indoor mall we went to had them, and the subway stations, maybe, scattered far and few between, and the airport, but NONE on the street). So, then...

" Ohayō Gozaimasu!"  ("Good Morning!"). Blogger didn't save one of my drafts properly and it deleted my first version of a good portion of this post, so it might be a bit more terse due to the time I lost having to rewrite this. 😳 Apologies! We finished up in Kyoto by visiting one of our last Shinto shrines, Fushimi Inari Taisha. This shrine is unique because it has thousands of torii gates (they look like arches to us). See below for an example of a torii gate (if you ever see one, you'll know you're at a Shinto shrine and not a Buddhist temple)!  Also, as you see in the pictures above, the place was crawling with Japanese students. Apparently June is their "field trip" month so we saw many kiddos of all ages throughout the day. They were so delighted every time we said "Hi!" and invited them to practice English on us. They got all shy and excited when we would gush over th...