Bento in Osaka

We just returned from a short trip to Osaka to catch the tail end of the sakura season. As expected, most of the flowers had already fallen there, so we headed out of the city to Yoshino, where over 10,000 sakura trees grow wild on the mountain. To my delight, there were still quite a few sakura blooming, especially in the higher regions of the mountain.

On the train journey to Yoshino, we enjoyed a lovely 3-tiered bento lunch that we purchased in the food section of Kintetsu Department Store. I was quite inspired by the first tier, and will try it out one day - it contained sushi rice, topped with shredded egg, slices of mushroom, a few peas, bamboo shoots and a prawn. The other two tiers contained a lovely assortment of pickles, savoury tamagoyaki, small fried fish, bamboo shoots, fish balls, lotus root and a sweet konnyaku jelly. It was really delicious, and very exciting to be eating a bento on a train in Japan!