Hey, I just noticed that Vileru took my recommendation to eat at かじ!  Nice!  I actually found it when I was trying to throw a going away party for a friend.  We couldn't spend that that much because some of us didn't have a lot of money at the time, but somehow I managed to find a place that does really good 京料理　for less than 5,000 yen.

I hadn't seen his report of the trip until now.  Sounds like it was a blast.

Tzadeck wrote:

Also, yeah, Osaka-jo is a museum, not a castle.  Nijo Castle in Kyoto is actually better I'd say; even Hikone castle just outside of Kyoto is better than Osaka's.

Then Nijo-jo is a palace, not a castle...   The walls are the most important part of a castle, not just the main keep, and Osaka-jo has really impressive walls and moats, and many gates and other buildings.  The main keep is just concrete though, so yeah, you'll want to visit an original castle building somewhere else as well (not Nijo-jo though, as it doesn't have a keep any more at all -- the palaces there are nice though)