This morning our first goal was to buy tickets for our train ride tomorrow. It took Duke almost an hour in line and at the counter but he accomplished the goal. We need to take two trains tomorrow, the bullet train and then a local train. It turns out that we can only buy the local train tickets when we get to our transfer point.

Then we walked to the Toyama Glass Art Museum. Along the way we detoured into the park around Toyama Castle.

The Toyama Glass Art Museum building is spectacular. The central atrium with the elevators and escalators goes up on a diagonal..

When we were ready to leave it was raining. We decided to walk back to the hotel in spite of the rain. Luckily we had loaner umbrellas from the hotel.

For dinner we were going to go back to the Yakiniku restaurant we ate at last night. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed. So we picked another restaurant at random. Since we can’t read any of the signs or menus it is always kind of a guessing game what we are going to eat.

This morning in Osaka I had the American breakfast again and Duke had the Japanese breakfast. He said it was very good.

Up until today we have been traveling west to east in Japan pretty much along the south coast. Today we took the train north and a little bit east to the north coast of Japan. We are now in the city of Toyama. Today was our longest train journey in Japan., two trains and two and a half hours.

For dinner we went to a Yakiniku restaurant (Japanese Barbecue) not far from our hotel and had great meat like we have had several places.

After dinner we went to Cotton Jazz Club and listen to a fabulous female pianist. The audience was just us and one other guy.

This morning one of the choices on the hotel breakfast menu was an “American breakfast”. When it arrived it didn’t look terribly familiar but it was good.

We decided to take the metro to Osaka Castle today. Along the walk to the metro station we passed this house completely covered with vines.

At Osaka Castle we stood in a long line to get tickets then went through the museum up to the 8th floor to see the view.

Next door to Osaka Castle is a building that is the former military headquarters of the 4th division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Now it’s a mall. We went in to find some cool resreshments and ended up with a variety of green tea things! We didn’t intend to order three but we managed to consume them all!

We took a city bus back to our hotel and had dinner at a nearby burger place. It was a good day.

This morning we checked out of our hotel in Hiroshima. We took a tram to the train station and then took the bullet train from Hiroshima to Osaka. The train ride took us about an hour and a half. In Osaka it took us a while to find the ride sharing pick up spot. But when we finally did we ordered an Uber. It quickly delivered us to our hotel.

After resting a bit we went out exploring. Because it was Sunday afternoon there weren’t too many people out and about..

We picked out a beef restaurant near our hotel for dinner and made a reservation. According to Google the restaurant is very near the hotel. Since we couldn’t read any of the signs we couldn’t find the restaurant. Eventually we went back to the hotel. One of the guys from the front desk walked us to the restaurant. Our dinner was fantastic. I think the beef was the best I have ever had.

This morning we walked to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The park is where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. We visited the memorials then went through the museum.

Then we walked to nearby Hiroshima Castle. The original building was a traditional flatland fortress built in 1589. The area around the castle was a major military command center during the war.

At least partly because it is Saturday there were lots of activities going on in the park surrounding the castle.

Around 5pm we went out to scope out possible dinner and music places for tonight. Right before we got to the major intersection near our hotel a bus hit a 5 car Hiroshima electric railway tram causing it to derail. As we got to the intersection the two drivers were talking. While we watched, about 10 police cars converged on the intersection. They shut down the intersection and began directing traffic. The whole situation was very impressive!

We ended having a wonderful dinner at a restaurant near the jazz club we were scoping out. The waitress was wonderful and explained everything to us. We had sake, miso, sashimi, and beef

Earlier when we were scoping out jazz places, we found the Shitamoto Piano Bar on the sixth floor of a building, a block down the street from where we ate. But, it didn’t open until 7. So, when we went back after dinner we didn’t know what to expect. As we entered the small bar the man who was there tried to explain to us there was no show tonight. But it seemed like he was trying to tell us something else. So we sat down. We were the only ones there. We finally understand that we needed to pick three songs from his music list and he would play them for us. There would be a music charge of about $30. We had a couple of drinks, sat back and enjoyed our very own private jazz concert. It was absolutely magical!