The busiest place in Osaka - Dotombori

The previous post in this series is here..

After being kicked out of Katsuoji temple right when they closed, we were lucky enough to get two taxis to take us straight to the busiest place in Osaka. It took us more than an hour in evening traffic to get there.

Katsuoji folks were ruthless. They did not allow us to use restrooms there as they closed the temple on time. One car had to do a restroom stop at a store on the way in busy traffic. Japanese drivers also are very strict about time = money. Eventually we all got there to the same location, a bridge with a mural on it.

Almost all of Osaka seemed to have converged there! It was really busy with so many folks. The river front had boat rides which we decided to skip. We walked through the streets and saw the restaurants.

We were looking for anything vegetarian. The kids were already like “another Indian place?” and I said “why not?”. There was one place which was like a Bhavikas that was highly rated. We had to go through some small stairs to get to it and it was a small space with 16 to 18 seats tops and every seat filled up while we were there.

The food was amazing! Even the kids agreed. After a nice meal, we walked back to the busy streets. It was time to head back to the Toyoko Inn in Osaka Namba for one last night of stay.. We did stop by at the busy streets and take photos with the night lights before closing out a busy travel day…

Here are some photos from a memorable evening.

I thought the photo in front of the Glico mural was great. Then Jr. told me “the insta spot in on a different bridge Appa!”. San was like so what? My reaction was “When we told our kids that they have to go around pulliyaar ummachchi clockwise, they didn’t argue. Today we shouldn’t argue when told that the photo has to be on a different bridge. There are rules in the Insta world and we have to respect them now!”

The same ladies who said there is absolutely no room for any more food at the Indian restaurant, stopped by this place which sold some kind of fruity kuzhi paniyaaram. They finished it between them and acted like it was no big deal. That has been put in deep memory. I ate half an extra butter naan to not waste it. It is water under the Dotombori bridge now..

A video highlights reel of our time at Dotombori river front..

This place was busy and noisy but an incredible experience!

Siem Reap river park, dinner and a tuk-tuk ride

The previous post in this series is here..

Believe it or not, this is the 10th stop for day 3 of our trip. Our first day of sightseeing in Cambodia that started before 7AM and ended at 6:30 PM.

Our driver stopped near the river park that was just beautiful. Given the traffic we ran across to catch the view and came back to the car. We found that we could actually walk to this place from our hotel. Made a mental note to do that the following day. After this our driver showed us around the night market area and the central square with all the restaurants. He told us it would be a 15 minute walk to our hotel after our dinner or we could take a tuk tuk back for 1 to 1.5$.

It was a choice between Modiji’s Indian restaurant or Lotus Indian restaurant. We picked Lotus. The food and service was awesome. We did feel that the yogurt was interesting. Later we learned that yoghurt in Cambodia was made from milk powder. Dairy is not a concept there and cows are only eaten. Was thinking “little wonder then that all the temples are in ruins”.

Here is a video highlights reel..

After dinner we decided to take the tuk tuk to the hotel. We were going to be picked up by our driver at 4:30 AM the next morning to see the sunrise..

It was an exhausting day with 10 stops and non stop sightseeing, a fall that ended in a bruised leg that still had not been attended to.. just went back to the hotel, took two tylenol and crashed. The next day was going to be busy as well!

Zion National Park- Narrows

Over the last three days we made a quick visit to Zion National park as we got a permit a few months ago to hike up to Angel’s landing.

If there is one picture that will stay in my head for a long long time after this trip, it is this one.. she did not know I was clicking it. The sunbeam that hit the pole as though it was a magical light saber and the beatific smile of content…

We left early on a Friday morning from San Jose to Las Vegas, rented a car and drove to Zion. Took this photo from the flight while crossing over to Nevada and was worried that we might have to tredge through ice and snow.. Fortunately none of that in Zion.

It took us a little over 2 1/2 hours. We stopped right at Zion Guru to get the rented gear to walk through the Narrows. This process took us 30 plus minutes. We ate a quick packed lunch right after, then parked the car at our hotel and had to take a shuttle into the park visitor center which added 20 minutes. Then another shuttle from Visitor center all the way to the last stop which took another 40 minutes.

Two things threw us off. First, we were very disappointed with Avis. The van they gave us was smelling of cigarette smoke. Apparently a big problem in Vegas these days with returned rentals. There are signs everywhere on the van that say 450$ cleaning fee. Still no one checked. We could wait an hour to go back inside and try another van (minivans are not easy to come by) or start driving. So we called, complained and kept driving in hopes that there would be some other Avis location en route where we could swap cars. Time was precious. While some of the folks were doing the talking, I covered my nose and mouth and kept driving. We stopped at one place to get some chlorox (the van was dirty in the back) and febreeze and sprayed the car with no reprieve. Then we kept windows open and tried everything. This cost us another 30 minutes.

Then the clock changed forward an hour and our heart sank. It was also confusing as where we go through a sliver of Arizona state where the clocks flip back and forth. We had miscalculated the time difference. The extra 30 minutes we took could make a difference on how far we went in the Narrows. When we started hiking from the Temple of Shinawava shuttle stop it was almost 2:30 in the afternoon. The last shuttle back to the visitor center leaves at 7PM and the gear shop closes at 8PM. That meant we had 4 hours to hike up the river and get back with a 30 minute cushion in case of any emergencies.

The plan was to turn back after two hours no matter where we were. We had the gear, so the water being cold was not a problem. Now that we had all resigned to the time limitation, we made the most of it. The plan was to walk fast, but the beauty of the place and the experience made it impossible as we had to stop and take photos. Photographers had to walk faster! Doing this on a hiking trail is one thing. Doing this while wading through water and slippery rocks is a higher level challenge.

Happy wife makes for a happy life. She was smiling all through this trip and that made my day. Haven’t walked this fast anywhere in recent times. Here are photos of us..

and here are the few clicks of the scenery…

and a video highlights reel..

None of the images above or the video do any justice to the actual experience of walking the narrows. We went a little past “wall street” towards Floating rock, which was another 5 minutes away from that point maybe.. but we did not want to take a chance. so we came back. If you visit Zion, see if you can take the extra day to start on this early in the morning so you can spend a good 6 hours and catch everything. 4 hours is too tight.

Do not miss this experience though. Our first visit to Zion was in 2004 December (predates the blog) and our little one wasn’t born yet. With Jr. in a stroller we could only walk across a bridge from Zion lodge to the lower lake and stop by along the road to take photos. There was no shuttle then. You could just drive through the park. To think that 20 years later we could actually do this trip and hike to all these places is a dream come true. Kids are 20 year projects! The last twenty plus years flew by fast with the focus on getting them to be adults. Now we get to see places together with friends. We are lucky to have the energy, means and the one or two days off here and there each year to be able to do this.

Given the blog only goes forward in time and you can trace back from posts that easily I will write a summary of the trip after finishing all the posts with links to all posts.

In spite of the time crunch we made it to the last shuttle and returned gear on time. It was back to our cabins to have a packed dinner and go sleep. I did fall down once within sight of the place where we get out of the water. Had to walk a mile in wet shirt in the cold. A few tylenols later things were fine.

We saw folks walking without any gear. They did not go far but still they are blessed to be able to handle the cold.

Do not miss this experience if you are in Zion. Plan well ahead.