Osaka & Kyoto
The "why" for my visit to Osaka was initially twofold: first, I wanted to see a little more of Japan than just Tokyo, and, second, I wanted to visit an old friend from college who lives in a nearby suburb. After a little research about the Kansai region, a day trip to Kyoto also looked very reasonable.
I used the Nozomi Shinkansen for all long distance travel in Japan (save for the Narita Express); I wish we had a train system like that in the western USA, especially between SF and Lake Tahoe (well, Truckee). It was reliable, punctual, comfortable, and fast, i.e. everything that AmTrak is not.
In both directions between Tokyo and Osaka, the weather was nice enough that I had a great view of Mt. Fuji from the train. The terrain around that region of Japan is clearly of geologically-recent volcanic origin, and thus reminiscent of Hawaii. I also saw the Solar Ark along the way.
Unfortunately, I caught a cold in Tokyo that manifested initially on the train to Osaka as a sore throat. I managed to keep it at bay for the rest of my trip with menthol cough drops and ibuprofen/pseudoephedrine, but at a cost: after I returned to California, it knocked me flat for two days.
Walter and his family absolutely insisted that I stay one night in their home in Nishinomiya, in spite of warnings of my incipient illness. I had a wonderful time. Walter's house is mostly Japanese-style, but with a number of western elements to it.
The next day, Walter, his wife Emi, and I rode the Shinkansen to Kyoto, and visited a few quite famous temples there:
The Golden Pavilion Temple
The Ryoan-ji Temple (in particular, its rock garden).
I'm not a devotee of meditation, but if I were, this would be a good place for it. Quiet, peaceful, and ... interesting.
The Kiyomizu-dera Temple
We had hoped to get to Kiyomizu-dera before sunset because the view from it is quite something, but we didn't quite manage. Walter allowed that, failing a sunset view, we could see the temple itself lit up for night, however, when he asked when the lights would be turned on, the answer was "next week."
An aside: I was amused to find when I installed MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) on my G5 desktop after this trip, that two of the Apple-provided screen background pictures offered under the "Nature" category are of the Golden Pavilion Temple (labeled "Golden Palace") and of the rock garden at Ryoan-ji Temple. ("I know those places! I was just there!").
I need to come back to Kyoto and look around some more.
The next day, Walter and I toured a little of Osaka. While wandering around, we happened upon a Korean Buddhist temple with two pieces of the Berlin Wall just inside its courtyard. Walter was surprised when I asked him to confirm the identity of those concrete wall sections with the temple staff. I was initially surprised to see the wall sections, but in context it makes perfect sense.
We also toured the electronics shopping district of Osaka (I probably exhibited undue irritation because I was sick, and I'd seen substantially similar stuff in Akihabara), and we finished off around sunset at Osaka Castle. It was late enough in fall that the leaves on the deciduous trees had turned color, but not all dropped off yet. I have pictures ... somewhere.
I stayed at the Westin Osaka, in Umeda. Umeda is in the process of redevelopment and in a year or three, it should be quite interesting.
My last day in Japan was a very, very long travel day: Nozomi Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo, Narita Express from Tokyo to NRT (with a seven minute change in Tokyo station. I made it at a brisk walk, but was happy to have bought "lemon water" to drink), and then a UAL non-stop from NRT to SFO. Because I crossed the International Date Line, I arrived at SFO an hour before my departure from Osaka, at around 9am. Two sunsets on the same date.
Shortly after I arrived at my brother's house, I crashed.