My Travel Adventures

After eating breakfast close to our hotel, we walked down to the Namba Yasaka Shinto Shrine, a place of worship dedicated to the spirit of the sea and storms, Susanoo. The shrine is famous for a building shaped as a giant lion’s head which holds, in its open jaws, a stage where locals perform rituals memorialising Susanoo’s story. We spent only a few moments at the shrine before walking onwards to Shitenno-ji. We passed by a number of other temples on the way but only entered one that we saw from afar and thought very picturesque for having a blossoming sakura right in front of its entrance gate. There was nothing very notable about the interior (and the bathroom both Ciaran and I wanted to use was closed) except for a stone statue of the cartoon character Doraemon. He had apparently been elevated to the ranks of a venerated spirit. 

My plane arrived in Tokyo on Monday evening some forty minutes earlier than scheduled, which came as a big relief to me because I was afraid the airport shops would all start closing at eleven. I managed to exchange some money and buy a public transport pass. I also bought a SIM card, during which process I realised that I had lost my UK SIM card somewhere in Pakistan and spent much of the train ride from the airport trying to figure out how to block it. While unpacking my bags at the hotel, I also realised that I had lost my adapter. I must have left it in a plug at the airport in Kuala Lumpur.