September 1 to 4, Osaka days and nights

Brendan here.

Riding to Osaka was pretty easy really (as is so much of Japan due to the copious bicycle paths).

Saw some interesting sights like a pre-school group pushing their charges down the street in carts. Practical and cute (sums up a few Japanese approaches to things).



We also passed these massive blocks of apartments along the river to Osaka harbour (don't ask me to name them. Looking at the GPS there were so many blue lines that I thought we were out to sea. We picked one and headed South West).

The apartments all faced west and were row upon row of these balconies that were little vignettes into peoples lives. Kind of cool and depressing.



The bicycle path that we finally settled on (after getting lost and turned around so much) was not so depressing. The order of things starting from the river was: River, sports fields (as it was prone to flooding it had few opportunities), flood berm with a bicycle path on top and rest of the towns. Pretty neat as it means if you find the right river you can just cruise to the coast on your own highway.



By the time we found the path though the sun was getting low in the sky.



So low that when we hit the outskirts of Osaka it was getting dark. Naomi was cruising for an all night place we could just sit at till 6am then start riding again. I was not so keen so a quick hotel stop here we come.



The next morning we set out for Miashima Island which we had discerned to have a camp ground. We came upon one of two bridges across to the island with the biggest bicycle ramp I had ever seen. Six stories looping around until we got to the bridge deck.



The bridge led to Miashima in the distance and passed Universal Studios Osaka (no picture here. Universal Studios all look the same).



Here we found a wonderful lodge with a public bath and log cabins and a camp ground. We were saved (from what, I don't know).



Up went the tent.



And the laundry too.



The next day was spent mooching around and dinner we cooked ourselves (our food, not literally ourselves) at our table (in the Lodge restaurant).



The following day we rode into Osaka on the bus and would spend eight nights at this lodge (3000 yen a night. Man, it was cheap!).
Here are a few buildings from the bus.

This one was a waste proccessing plant. I don't know who designed it but the tower can be seen in the picture when we crossed the bridge. It had a twin brother on the otherside of the island.



And this is a really bad picture of Tadao Ando's trainstation at Universal Studio. I'll have better ones later.



Sayonara. Gumbate Kudasai.