Kansai Trip: Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara

In the middle of May, my friend and I went to Kansai for four days. We took the night bus from Tokyo to Osaka and even though it was a 10 hour ride, it was way cheaper than taking the Shinkansen. We got dropped off in front of Universal Studio around 7am the next day and went to stand in line. It was honestly worth it as we got in fairly quickly and the line behind us was huge at this point. We got to go into Super Nintendo World, which was great to experience. I loved the Koopas Challenge ride, it was just like the Mario Cart game! There was also some anime-themed attractions around USJ, like from Jujutsu Kaisen and Spy x Family. After staying for most of the day, we took the train to our capsule hotel, which was my first time staying at one. It was pretty nice and the capsule itself was bigger than I expected.

On the second day, we went to Kyoto. Our first stop was Fushimi Inari Shrine. It was pretty crowded, but thinned out as we climbed higher. There were a lot of shops at the base of the shrine and I bought some yatsuhashi, a Kyoto specialty sweet that I wanted to buy again ever since I visited Kyoto in 2018. Afterwards we headed to Kiyomizudera. This was my favorite part of Kyoto when I visited last time and it was nice and clear this day. I got to enjoy matcha and a variety of wagashi at a cafe, then we headed back to Osaka.

The next morning we went to Nara. Our first stop was the famous mochi shop, the one with the mochitsuki (pounding). Then we walked to the park and got to see the deer. They were pretty agressive, especially after we ran out of deer senbei to give them. We walked around Todaiji Temple, and went to eat lunch after at a sushi restaurant. They had kakinoha sushi, a Nara specialty which consisted of sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves.

That afternoon, we went to Round One in Osaka. It had a sports-cha, which is basically a place where you can play a bunch of different sports. We got to do soccer, basketball, tennis, archery, golf, darts, and ping pong. I think we were there for six hours.

Sunday was our last day. We walked around Dotonbori and even went back to Round One to play more games. That evening, we went to TeamLab Botanical Gardens, which only opens after sunset. There was were these eggs in the garden that lit up in different colors and a field with lights projected on it. There were also lights in the lake and even more eggs, although these were very big.

We took another 10 hour bus ride back to Tokyo afterwards, and that was the end of our Kansai trip!