I spotted this couple being moved around the scenic spots at Osaka Castle by a camera crew that included some pro video gear; they were likely shooting for a TV show (thanks, Jonathon) newlyweds.

If you’re in Kyoto and looking for good Japanese-style kitchen knives, pocket knives, or woodworking tools, Minamoto no Hisahide has excellent stuff and reasonable prices. They’re in the Teramachi shopping arcade off of Shijo-dori, right around the corner from Nishiki Tenmangu shrine (which, by the way, is why the food/kitchen street that runs west from here is called Nishiki Market).

Aritsugu, not far away, is a high-end shop with excellent handmade knives and hammered-copper pots and pans. I don’t like anyone enough to buy gifts there, and I really couldn’t justify filling my luggage with heavy copper that would never get used, so I only window-shopped there.

[Update: I found the receipt, and the third knife shop not only wasn’t in the Teramachi arcade, it wasn’t even in Kyoto! No wonder I never found it again. It was actually the Ichimonji outlet on the Doguyasuji kitchen street in Osaka’s Namba district. We’d stopped in there the first day we were in town, so my memories were quite blurred by the end of the trip.] There’s another knife shop on Teramachi, where I picked up a very nice (and quite affordable!) damascus nakiri for a friend, as well as some of the standard-grade Higo no Kami pocket knives, but at the moment, I can’t find the name. I’ll have to hunt through my receipts.

To be honest, the Luminous Kobe dinner cruise is a great experience, but not much of a photo-op. If you spend some time in Kobe, though, there’s plenty to see; next trip.

We only had time for a brief visit to Osaka Castle. That still took nearly two hours, since the place was filled with cherry blossoms and their fans.

I do not want this. Using a smartphone app to remotely control a high-tech Japanese toilet is carrying things just a bit too far.

They just want their fair share of the crackers.

It’s one of the laws of tourism.

The Kyoto Botanical Garden had all sorts of blooms. Here’s one of the non-cherry blossoms:

Just don’t ask me what this thing is…

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