Saturday morning was another slower morning, as we were checking out of the Kyoto hotel. We had some breakfast and decided to hit the hotel gym before packing up and getting on our way. We took a train to Nara, a smaller town that is known for it's Deer Park where deer just roam around freely. We had some trouble finding lockers to store our luggage but did figure it out eventually. The Deer Park was . . . interesting. I was a bit weirded out by it to be honest. The deer were approaching people begging for food, it felt very unnatural:-/. Apparently the deer are very respected creatures and aren't badly treated but it felt very odd. We walked around there for a while and checked out the shopping area close by before getting back on the train to Osaka. There was some confusion getting our tickets to Osaka, the machine wasn't taking our credit card for the limited express train and when we went to the desk, they only wanted to sell us the regular commuter train tickets. We ended up on a regular subway train with all our luggage which was not what we wanted, but at least we had seats. We just tried to keep our luggage as close to us as possible so it wasn't in the way of all the commuters!
When we got to the train station we took a taxi to our hotel, which was another great find. Such a nice room, and the view of Osaka Castle was amazing! After getting settled we went in search of a place to eat supper. We got the feeling that we weren't in the most touristy of places, although there were plenty of options available. We planned to eat at this sushi place but after waiting outside for a bit we got the feeling it was quite a family place. I saw there was an Italian place upstairs just across the street from it that got great reviews so we headed over there. It was such an interesting experience! Once again we sat at the bar in this tiny restaurant, and we had only been there for a short time when I smelled cigarette smoke - there was a guy smoking two seats down! Ugh! We didn't want to leave at that point so I decided to endure it, but it was unpleasant. This couple was so interesting. They didn't speak English but were trying to talk to us all night. It was entertaining at first but got a bit uncomfortable at times, especially when he bought another bottle of wine and told the waitress to pour us each another glass! It was very generous of him but we felt so weird! The cook was also trying to talk to us, he was a funny guy and didn't make us uncomfortable. The food was amazing - such good pasta! We were happy in the end with our choice, even though it was definitely a bit of a strange evening:-D.
We picked up a few drinks from the hotel confectionary and had a drink before heading off to bed, another great day!
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