Unfortunately, it was raining on the day we came back to Fushimi Inari. We didn't let the weather defeat us, though! And this time we got to drag our mom with us. She was probably not too happy about all the walking we did.





If you take the Keihan Line from Osaka to Fushimi Inari Station, keep walking up to the street lined with various souvenir shops and small restaurants and cafes. Nearer the shrine, more street food vendors can be found.




There are a lot of people here in the day so it's hard to take pictures at the first set of torii. However, if you keep walking up instead of taking the way down at the first turn, you'll find that the area that leads to the smaller shrines are a lot less crowded and easier to photograph.

The first set of torii will lead to a smaller shrine. They also sell omamori there and if you didn't buy a small torii to write wishes on near the entrance, you can buy a fox head-shaped ema here and also draw a face on the fox yourself.






It's actually not much of a hike, although the path does get bleaker and creepier the further up you go. My brothers even joked that we should've gone up here when we went at night. There's still some way to go, actually—we arrived at a high spot which was probably meant to still be reached by visitors because they had a place that sells offerings of sorts—but I voted on walking back down partly because it was still rainy and mostly because the path looked really creepy. Maybe I'd have been a little braver if the weather was better!

This takoyaki wasn't as good as the one we ate in Akihabara.

The street food lining the street up to the shrine are actually a bit too expensive. Understandable, since it is a tourist area. Walking along the street was a nice experience anyway. I wonder if a festival would be more lively, with more food and stuff to try. I'd like to experience it at least once!

We had lunch at this cute little cafe where the person who served us was really friendly and also very surprised that my brothers had the "same face!!"

It was our last proper day in Japan so we fought to squeeze Osaka Castle in, even though the weather worsened. We approached from the Temmabashi Station (which was a terrible idea because we almost got lost) and left by Osaka Loop Line's Morinomiya Station. There was probably a better way visit Osaka Castle, though...



There's actually not much to see inside the castle itself, unless you're super interested in the history. Photographs are not allowed in some floors, and, unfortunately, those were the floors I was most interested in. They had a few samurai armour on display and you can even take a photo wearing one of the helmets—for a fee!






We decided to follow the signs to JR Morinomiya Station instead of walking all the way back to Temmabashi Station, so we got to see a bit more on the way back.





And that concludes our last proper day in Japan! Our flight the next day was not until in the evening, but we spent the day preparing and making sure we don't leave anything behind. It's only unfortunate that we didn't have more time and resources to spend in Japan.

The last post will be on the bunch of crap I ended up wasting my money on, because what else would a baka gaijin otaku do in Japan besides buy a lot of fandom things? Please look forward to it!