I was still tired this morning. I think it’s probably because of the onsen yesterday, but I told my sister it feels like I’ve been walking all day, every day, for a month-and-a-half. She said, “Because you have, Forrest.” I even forgot to call home before I left the hotel. Fortunately, there are apps that let you use Google Voice using only data on your iPhone (Talkatone).

I decided to go to the Open-Air Museum of Old Japanese Farm Houses in Hattori Ryokuchi Park in Toyonaka City. I’ve been putting it off, thinking, “Hey, my grandma had an old Japanese Farm House and I’ve even stayed there in the past.” But then I realized that my cousin had torn both houses down.

All my pictures today are from my iPhone. For some reason I felt too lazy to take my other camera out of my bag.

On the way to the subway, I saw a looong line at one of the department store basement food stores. This one, I think, is Daimaru. I wonder what they were getting. I was tempted to line up just to be more Japanese.

I got a subway day pass and headed for the park. There’s a path from the closest subway station to the park. If you look at the sign, there was an autumn fair going on.

The park is pretty big and has lots of areas with various activities going on. There’s even a horse riding area that I never got to.

In one of the open areas they were doing whatever this is. Bike Trial riding, I think. This little kid was pretty good at it.

There was an announcement of heavy machinery demonstrations. They let little kids onto the machines. The garbage truck was just arriving.

Ashiya University had their solar car, plus two smaller solar cars for kids to ride around on.

I didn’t take pictures of the Segway rides, or the slack-line, or lots of other things for kids to try out.

This is the entrance to the Open-Air Museum of Old Japanese Farm Houses. The gate is an old gate moved to the museum.

All of the houses (this is actually a barn) were actual houses moved here to the museum. I didn’t take a picture of the first house because they were having a woodwind recital inside. I’m also not going to say too much about the houses because I’d just be copying it from the pamphlets.

There were things going on in the houses (lots of activities for kids) and there were even little old ladies starting  cooking fires. Just like my grandma’s house, with grandmas inside!

This was a tea house and I almost stopped in for some green tea. But I don’t really know the procedure.

This is a kabuki stage.

There were looms in one of the houses where kids could try weaving cloth from silkworm thread (or so I’m guessing).

I took this picture because I remember this kind of construction in my grandma’s house.

They were even demonstrating spinning silk thread.

This is a huge house from Shirakawa where extended families would live together. It’s complicated, and you should look it up if you’re interested. The upper floors were used for growing silkworms.

I headed back into the park and these pictures can’t show you how steep this hill is.

The all-day ticket actually stopped at Esaka, and I had to pay extra to get from Esaka to Hattori Ryukuchi-koenmae. I bought another ticket to get back, and got off. I remember there were guys who would hang out in Esaka since, back in the day, the only Osaka Tokyu Hands was in Esaka. But Esaka didn’t look that inviting so I just looked at my iPhone map and found something interesting.

Yeah, it says, “Asahi Beer”. It’s not listed in any of the tourist guides so I figured it was just a factory (as it was) but I decided it was time for an adventure.

So it was off through the neighborhoods.

I found a rice paddy in the middle of all the buildings.

It was a long walk with not too much to see but I found a surf shop! The one thing my brother-in-law wanted me to look for was the fancy new Japanese stretch neoprene.

I tried calling my sister but the data throughput kind of sucked in that area. She wanted some fabric samples and felt funny about asking for them. Turns out this guy is the real deal and makes wetsuits upstairs and gave me some scraps for samples.

When I got to the train station at Suita, I realized I’d misread the map and there wasn’t any subway there. So my day pass was worthless to me.

I found a shrine, of course, right next to Hankyu Suita Station. This is Izudono-gū Shrine.

They were having a chrysanthemum display, and it’s the season for chrysanthemum displays.

You can see the only three people who were at the shrine. I asked them about how to get back to the subway or to Umeda, and they told me that it was incredibly far to get back to where I started much less walk to Umeda. Japanese people don’t go walking through the city like I do. They were really nice and helpful and kept me from going to the old Expo ’70 site because there’s nothing to see there except more chrysanthemums. They also told me the closest thing that would let me use my day pass would be back at Esaka.

This is Kanzakigawa, the first of two rivers I crossed walking back to Umeda. I walked about five hours, and at 3 miles per hour that’s fifteen miles. I have no idea if that’s accurate and I really wanted to rest today.

I couldn’t find a restaurant so here’s my lunch. I really have to plan my trips better.

Somewhere in the middle of my trip I saw this on my map. A museum in the middle of the river! But I figured the real museum is on land.

I went a long ways down this narrow sidewalk next to a highway.

The sidewalk got even narrower but I finally got to the museum.

I think this says that the museum is closed starting 4/1/2012.

Ah well, time to cross Yodogawa River.

This picture is for my sister, a sign saying, “Start, Osaka 30K.”

Still a ways to Umeda.

There were a lot of people in the restaurants in Umeda. I even had to wait to get into our favorite green tea restaurant, Toki. They had potato parfait and I couldn’t read the kanji so I tried it. I think I’m going back to just get the more traditional desserts soon.

I got back to the hotel and passed out in the chair in the room. No, the chair isn’t very comfortable, but I was TIRED. It was a lot more humid than you’d expect.

For dinner I was trying to decide where to go and I though, I have a day pass, it cost me ¥600, and I’ve only used about ¥230 on it. But I did notice there was a Bikkuri Donkey in Esaka as well as Dotonbori and I could finally have dinner at the place I saw on TV a month or so ago. So off it was to Esaka.

The menu is built into a huge window shutter and I had a hard time deciphering it. But I finally just asked and got the hamburger with cheese and potato salad inside.

Oh, and a beer.

The TV show I saw was one where they had to rank the popularity of the items on the menu. They’d try to find the highest ranking item, order it, and then see where it actually ranked. Everything they tried they kept saying was really good. Well, this is the best tasting hamburger steak I’ve had in Japan and it was pretty cheap. The beer was cheap and I wouldn’t order it again. The bitterness tasted almost medicinal.

It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and I already have plans. I want to see the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living and Japan’s longest 2.6km (~1.6 miles) shopping street. I’m hoping the shopping street is covered.