We’re having coffee and donuts in the largest 7-11 superstore as we make our way out of Osaka to Nara. A short day of only 35km but it’s raining and will do for the rest of today. 

Osaka has interesting residential districts through which we passed as we cycled east, typified by small boutique shops, bakeries and restaurants beneath tall apartment buildings. Amongst all the urban chaos there is a neatness to everything, an order to the inside of shop and office windows and the small manufacturing premises cutting and drilling machine parts in tiny spaces. 

It looks as if the artisan ways of making things still thrives here. We often come across sewing shops selling fabric, zips and everything to make clothing. Similarly DIY shops full of tools and equipment. It is definitely a place of ‘can do’  which is seen on the much larger scale in the built civil engineering structures of bridges, elevated roads and railways, which connects the country so impressively together.