Still in Osaka.  This is day 4 of the trip and I’m still waking up at 4:30 a.m.  Grrr.

The kids mentioned an interest in going to the zoo. Since we were staying in the city today, we had time to go to the gym at the hotel and get a quick workout in.  After the short workout, we got ready and exchanged our rail pass orders and now have free rein to travel all over Japan.

We went on the train to Tennoji Zoo to have a leisurely day looking at animals.  I saw on the website that the zoo is closed on Mondays so we planned to go on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I missed the small note that said that the zoo is closed on Tuesdays if Monday was a holiday~and yes, Monday was a holiday. When we got to the zoo, we found that it was closed.  Shucks.

Since we had our rail passes, we decided to take the bullet train to Kyoto where we heard from several Hawaii friends that they have a really yummy tonkatsu restaurant at the station. The 15-minute ride there from Osaka is so easy. We got to Kyoto station, explored a bit, and then went to eat tonkatsu. There was a line to get into the restaurant and so that was a good sign that the food would be good. The restaurant had a bench outside the door so the wait was comfortable and went by quickly as we studied the menu and made decisions on our order. Took the train back to Osaka and had dinner with my cousins that evening.  The blog post about my cousins is here.

The next day, I finally was able to sleep in.  I woke up at 6 a.m.  Loved the good sleep I had.

Went to Kobeya Kitchen bakery to buy a melon pan and a sakura cake. We also had a delicious okra salad. We headed to Hakata station in Fukuoka. It was a two and a half hour shinkansen ride.  Easy and comfortable.

We bought ekiben and treats to eat on the ride south. The frozen clementines were like eating a tangerine ice shave. Delicious and refreshing.

My friend Garet was staying in Kumamoto and came up to have dinner with us that night.

We found an izakaya at the Hakata train station on an aisle called Izakaya Street full of izakayas which as you may have noticed are my favorite kind of places to go and eat while in Japan. Good food, good beer, with a good Hilo pal.  Living Hilo Style.