I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Amateur Traveler episode 540. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about

giant Buddhas and wooden castles, octopus balls and earthquakes as we go to

the Konsai region of Japan including Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and

we'll even throw in Kobe.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen.

Before we get to this episode, a special thanks for J-Way Travel that has been sponsoring

the transcripts of these podcasts for the last year or so.

Their sponsorship is going to end with this episode, but I want to thank them for sponsoring,

and of course if you know somebody who wants to take their place, just let me know.

I'd like to welcome to the show Amanda

Kendall from the thoughtful travel podcast where you can find at not a

ballerina.com who has come to talk to us about Kansai Japan.

Amanda welcome to the show.

Thank you very much Chris. Great to be here and I can't wait to talk on and on about

Osaka and Kansai.

One of my favorite parts of the world.

Before we do that, I'm very depressed because apparently since Amanda started

podcasting after me, the thoughtful travel was a podcast name that was available. I could have been that. But oh well.

It's a lot of pressure though to try and be thoughtful all the time so if you're

the amateur traveler then you can do anything. When I get people say that I'm amateurish, I say it's in the name.

...