Hello friends - it's been a hot minute since the last time I blogged! I just returned from a month-long trip in Asia, and have just been getting my bearings at home (unpacking, taking lots of jetlag naps, organizing pictures). I did want to go ahead and start posting about some of my travels before I get too behind, so I'll start with Osaka, Japan! We only spent a couple of days here since we divided a week into Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, but we did get to see some pretty and interesting sights. Also, we went specifically to see the cherry blossoms, so a lot of our itinerary was based around that.
Hotel: We stayed at the Hotel New Hankyu (1 Chome-1-35 Shibata, Kita Ward, Osaka, 530-8310, Japan). It was in a very convenient location - you can take a shuttle to and from the airport straight to this hotel, and it's very close to the subway station. It's also right across the street from Yodobashi, a multi-floor retail store that specializes in electronics and has a floor with many restaurants (we ate there twice). My sister was able to find a replacement camera lens here, so that was really nice!
Places to Visit:
Osaka Castle Park: This place is gorgeous and HUGE! We only allotted ourselves a couple of hours here, but could have definitely spent more time exploring the grounds and riding the train or the boat. We had planned on riding the boat, but by the time we got to the ticket booth around noon, they were selling tickets for a 2:30 boat...so I'd recommend getting there early if that's something you want to do.
You can also purchase tickets to go inside the main castle, but again, there were long lines, so we decided to admire the building from afar. The area around the main castle is where most of the activity is - we tried some sakura rose from a vendor, watched performers advertise for a restaurant's lunch special, and took a ton of pictures. The cherry blossoms were only just budding, but there was still quite a crowd.
The castle also illuminates the garden at night for cherry blossom season, but we ended up not having enough time to get to see this. Next time!
Kema Sakuranomiya Park: From the Osaka Castle, we walked toward the Japan Mint building, which is off the O River, since we'd read the river is lined with cherry blossom trees. The first time we went, the trees weren't quite in full bloom, BUT! On the way, we did pass through the Old Fujita House Garden, which was full of beautiful and colorful flowers. It was a great find! And we did return to the Sakuranomiya Park towards the end of our trip, when the cherry blossoms had bloomed - it was beautiful walking along the river and seeing the food vendors and picnickers.
Shinsaibashi-Suji: All the shoppers, this place is for you! This is a long street full of fun stores and food. It's a covered alley, so you don't have to worry about the weather while you shop. And it can get pretty crazy - we went on Friday around 5 or so, and it was packed. We only stopped in a few stores since we were getting hungry, but it's worth a visit if you'd like to shop. My favorite is the Disney store, but I didn't purchase anything since it's a little pricey compared to the States. They also have a 3COINS, in which most everything is about $3 USD. It's pretty cute stuff, and the quality looks nice for being so cheap.
Kuromon Ichiba Market: One of my favorite places! You have to stop by this market and grab a meal or even just a snack. They have so many good things to eat. Just a heads up, the market's hours show as closing at 6PM, but vendors will start packing up as early at 4PM, so I'd recommend making this a lunch stop or late afternoon snack.
We went twice during our trip because we enjoyed this place so much. Here are some of the things we ate:
OK, and my favorite part? We were able to eat the cheapest otoro of our lives. Walking around, we'd stopped by to look at one sushi vendor and saw a few nigiri platters remaining for 50% off original price (it was about 3:30PM). There were two plates of otoro (fatty tuna), two plates of scallops, and one plate of combination nigiri. My dad and I were full from other snacks, but the deal was too good to pass up, so we decided on getting one plate of scallops and the combo plate. I ordered, but the vendor said instead, she'd give us all the plates for only $10 USD! Considering that these plates originally would've cost us $80 USD, we jumped at this deal and took everything. The market has a space with tables and restrooms, so we took our sushi and ate there. So good!
Dotonburi: This is a fun area full of shops and restaurants and awesome photo ops. You can find the famous Glico man billboard and take a picture (along with hundreds of others), find some delicious okonomiyaki or takoyaki, and just take in all the giant decorations and sights. This is probably the most fun and vibrant at night, but it's fun during the daytime as well.
One thing is that a lot of the bigger restaurants will have long waiting lines, and for the smaller establishments, you will likely need to go up or down stairs. So, since my parents wanted to avoid stairs, we just found the first restaurant that didn't have a line. It was an okonomiyaki place - Warai Okonomiyaki. Our expectations were a little low, since we noticed that our neighboring table left a ton of food on the table, but it was pretty delicious!
Osaka Museum of Housing & Living: This place is an interesting place to visit if the weather is bad and you have an hour or two to kill. If you're interested in dressing up in kimonos and taking photos, this is probably the cheapest place to do so. There's a recreation of a town in the late Edo period to explore, as well as other exhibits.
Tenjimbashi-suji: We found this shopping street next to the museum and enjoyed walking through it. It definitely has a more local feel to it than Shinsaibashi-suji, and the food is very cheap. We ate some awesome takoyaki that my sister recognized as being a pretty well-known chain, as well as some $4-5 udon and katsudon. A lot of the clothing and household item stores were definitely aimed towards the older crowd, so we watched a huge crowd of grandmas go nuts at a bedsheet sale! It's also covered, so you don't need to worry about the weather while you walk.
So, that's the majority of what we did in Osaka! We mostly ate our breakfasts at the hotel buffet (SO GOOD). We ate dinner around our hotel - the Yodobashi building next door had really good options, as well as the LUCUA shopping building a few blocks down. There was also a small alleyway that we passed through to get to the subway that had multiple restaurants that you could find many businessmen at after work.
Have you been to Osaka? What are some of your favorite places to go, or things to eat? Be sure to check out my Osaka, Japan video below:
- HungryDeb
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