Actual day one, tragedy: instead of sleeping until 4am, I am wide awake at 2am. Generally, the fatigue carries me til 4, but I guess I’ll take my 6 hours of sleep and like it.
There’s only one thing to do when you’re up this early: raid a 24hr conbini and then go for a walk. We got to pet some dogs and say hi to old people and Nathan did muscle-ups in a park. Perfect. Time for our early train to Osaka!
We took green car (firstish class) shinkansen down to Osaka because I haven’t done green car before, the yen is weak, I’m a diva, etc. You get an extra-comfy seat with electric recline, more space, and more importantly, it’s silent and you can still get food service if you want it.
Do you need to do it? Probably not. But I was booking early so I got a discount and ya girl cannot resist a discount.
Fuji is sadly hiding in the clouds today. Maybe we will see it next week. And I don’t order the food service, even though I could have.
I’ve been to Osaka just once before – while I’ll always be a Tokyo girlie, Osaka has some pretty great stuff. There’s a lot to do if you want to really go all-out, but most of our focus will be on weaving in and out of Dotombori, the main shopping drag, and going to exhibits and finding things in back alleys.
We throw our things at the hotel and make haste to Osaka Castle. It was once a military stronghold, playing a key part in the unification of Japan in the 16th century. Now, the inside is now a museum, which is crawling with tourist hordes (surely exactly as Toyotomi Hideyoshi envisioned).
We mosey through the castle exhibits, which take you through lots of art that depicts all the battles of Osaka, the clans that feuded for it, and all the cool armor and blades of the warriors. No pics for the most of it, so just imagine some neat samurai armor with mustaches and stabby blades and folding screens. Stab stab!
On the tippy top floor, you can enjoy the view over all of Osaka with 3480 of your best tourist friends! It’s wonderfully breezy and clear and I definitely do not imagine what it would be like to throw something at someone down below (not out of malice, but just to see what happens).
One of the very cool things about Osaka castle is the giant stones (megaliths) that make up some of the castle’s foundation and walls. They’re absolutely gigantic. Once I learn about them, I make a point to selfie with one. Super glad my job isn’t moving ginormous rocks around.
By the time we are done, it’s 1pm. We’ve almost been up for 12 hours. Cool neato great. It feels like it’s 4pm in a way that is decidedly not cute. At any rate, It’s still too early to check in, so we hit the Nintendo Store & Pokemon Center in Osaka station.
The Nintendo stores are pretty standard across the country. I’m kinda sad they don’t have any cool Switch 2 cases. However, the Pokemon Center here is wayyyyyyy smaller than the one in Ikebukuro and I am actually kinda disappointed in it. It’s fine but no mega center.
I battle my way through children to throw my money at Nintendo and we flee to our hotel. We are deeply in need of a siesta because we’ve gotten 16k steps in at this point and we’re slightly dying.
One of my travel skills has become picking dope hotels and air bnbs. I spend a lot of time poring over them and this one I found is a real gem. We have a huge space with two bedrooms – one is a Japanese-style tatami room, and the other, western-style. Nathan declared he needed a room that has just one table in it. This place even had a sofa! (wow) We spend some time being dead on the sofa as a family because we have earned it.
For dinner: it is time for noodles. I dig up a restaurant from my guidebook because I’m too hangry to sift thru a sea of complaints about restaurants by Dotombori (either from foreigners or locals, who never agree on anything, and this amuses me endlessly but I am getting hangry and thus slightly demonic).
Imai honten is our noodle shop: opened after WWII and particularly renowed for its kitsune udon, which is a sweeter broth that has fried tofu in it. Score, mostly a vegetarian dish! And double score, it’s right by Dotombori, so we have some entertainment after dinner.
We find a random shrine in the back alley on our way to noodles. It’s closed, but they have incense still burning, and you can throw water at a kannon. I don’t throw water, but I do enjoy the lanterns and ambiance. It’s pretty quiet despite being just a block off the main drag.
The restaurant is tucked away from the main street that has 348 takoyaki (octopus ball) shops, next a narrow alley that is single file. There are little lanterns lighting your way between the shrine and the restaurant. You could twist an ankle or three since it’s uneven. It’s very cute. I am pleased.
Our noodles are delightful and we arrive before it gets really busy. I direct Nathan to trying oden because it’s a thing you can’t get in restaurants at home and is an essential Japanese fall/winter food. Patrick gets an udon dish because the shop is known for its tasty udon. I get the kitsune udon but get soba noodles instead because they’re not made with any salt. It is entirely divine. We are full and very tired and this is a very great bday meal for Nathan.
We wander dotombori after our noodley meal and hit up the chaotic don quijote shop that has a freakin ferris wheel on it. It’s packed but weirdly not full of screaming music in every aisle (??? I mean is this REALLY donki???). The line for the ferris wheel is tragically really long so we skip it. We need to go back to Donki because this experience is not as overwhelming as it could be and I feel I lied to my friends.
Anyway the neon lights here are a total delight. There is naturally a bunch of people posing with the Glico running man and stopping to take pics of the ginormous oversized neon light displays.
Our second and final day in Osaka, we visited Osaka Namba Yasaka shrine. It has a super cool dragon around the main shrine area. If you position yourself just right, you get to be eaten. I of course choose this thing. The dragon watches with its super neat glassy eyes.
Next stop: an ukiyo-e museum – different from the one I saw last time, this one had a super delightful collection of original prints from the 1800s and 1900s. I forgot about Hiroshi Yoshida (how?), who makes super gorgeous, more modern woodblock prints. I resist mightily the urge to get a big print in this store. My strength is so impressive.
We didn’t have set plans for after our morning activities, but we ended up enjoying a meander around Bic Camera for a while. It’s kind of like an electronics/home goods store that sells a wide variety of all the things you need and many that you don’t. Our best find was a refrigerator that opened when you touched a spot on the door vs needing to be pulled. Amazing.
As our final act, I introduce Patrick & Nathan to Takoyaki, one of Osaka’s Food Things. I think I forget to warn them that takoyaki are hot as f and they sear their tastebuds into oblivion….worth it.
On the way back to our hotel, I also find one of those Korean stretchy coin thingies, but it’s a 10 yen coin. It’s filled with cheese. I am enthralled and very happy.
Next up, fancy boat to Beppu!
