My last blog post was about the Tokyo leg, or rather legs of my trip. That blog post will have more essential information on travelling to Japan so I’m not going to repeat myself. These blog posts are long winded enough as they are, because I have no idea how to write short form content. Without further ado, let’s get started from where I left off in the past blog post
Getting to Osaka
We took the shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka and it was brilliant. Trains are clean, fast, comfortable, what more could you ask for? Much better than flying by far! We get to Osaka pretty late at night, while my parents were there for a bit longer than us so they had the chance to go to Dotonburi, honestly one of my favourite places I saw on my trip to Japan. Blows Times Square out of the water in my opinion. And if I’m being honest, it’s hard to pick which city I liked better between Tokyo and Osaka. Both are amazing and you can’t go wrong travelling to either city. Preferably, you see them both. I’d say that Osaka is kind of like the Chicago of Japan and that’s why I love it. I really have an affinity for cities that are the Chicago equivalent, like in the UK, I liked Glasgow and Manchester and both of those cities reminded me of Chicago. Although we spent a little more time in Kyoto, we stayed in Osaka because it was a lot cheaper and with the shinkansen, getting to Kyoto was a breeze – that will be a different blog post though. We also went on a day trip to Nara to see the deer and that was really cool and I’ll be talking about that day trip in this blog post.
Osaka Day 1: Osaka Castle and Dotonburi
Since we had just arrived, we decided to spend our first day in the Kansai region in Osaka visiting two of the most popular landmarks: Osaka Castle and Dotonburi. My brother did a lot of the trip planning and I just went along, seeing the sights.
Osaka Castle is one of the most famous landmarks in all of Japan and there’s a lot of history. Japan is well known for its beautiful castles and if you go to Japan, visit a castle or a few if you can! My brother had a lot of things on his agenda so we spent more time looking at the beauty of this 16th century castle and taking pictures rather than reading about the history. Around the castle are a few moats and the stone walls around the castle are called Burdock piling (in Japanese: gobouzumi), which fits large stones over a mound of earth and fills in the gaps with small pebbles, or in Japanese kuri ishi, called chestnut stones. The type of architecture of the main keep of the castle is called Tenshu. In times of peace, the main keep is used as a fortified storehouse. The Fall of Osaka Castle happened in 1868 and some buildings around there were burnt during the Meiji Restoration. As you can expect, American bombing raids killed people at the castle and damaged the buildings and so the castle has been reconstructed. The castle was famously featured in the 1955 film Godzilla Raids Again, when Godzilla battles Anguirus. Also in pop culture, in the video game Animal Crossing New Horizons, you can make manhole covers and you can customise them with customisation kits to have different designs, as Japan is well known for its iconic manhole covers – one of my favourite things about Japanese culture is the appreciation for aesthetics and making even the most mundane things beautiful, makes sense why I love the Victorian Era aesthetic movement. One of the manhole covers is the one of Osaka Castle, which you’ll see in Osaka. Personally, one of my favourite manhole cover designs. One of many moments where I recognised something I saw in Japan from Animal Crossing.
Afterwards, my brother took us all to a bakery and as the lone vegan I watched everyone enjoy pastries. Not long afterwards, it was lunchtime and we decided to split and go to places we’d enjoy. My omni family went to a market to look for sushi and Eoin and I went to a vegan friendly restaurant called Natural Kitchen Medaka. While not exclusively vegetarian, there is a focus on whole foods and quality ingredients. They have an entire vegan and vegetarian menu and you can get a set meal. I got the fried soybean meat meal, which came with soup, salad, and rice.
Afterwards, we all met up and went shopping. Eoin decided to check out nerdy things, while the rest of us went to Shinsaibashi to window shop at the fancy Daimaru Department Store that had a lot of cool displays and designer goods. Another highlight that my brother noticed was this world goods store called Malaika that sells wares from all over the world: the Americas, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. Lots of cool things to see there and you could spend hours looking through the multiple floors of decor, furniture, clothing, and jewellery. My favourite thing I saw at the store was all the gemstones, I really liked gemstones as a kid and I loved collecting the pick and mix gemstones from the gift shops and I had a book from the 60s all about rocks, gemstones, and minerals.
After a lot of walking, we get to Dotonburi and it is incredible. Sure I know the pretentious people are gonna be like, “Why are you impressed by a square with lots of advertisements?” But I don’t know, I just like city lights and I think it makes great photography, not everything has to be deep and intellectual. Travelling is about fun. Eoin meets us there and we walk around the area checking out arcades. Eoin tried to win a toy banana from one of those skill crane games (sadly, he did not win).
Afterwards, we went to a vegan restaurant located right in Dotonburi called Pivot Base Cafe & Bar. I had an iced matcha latte (of course!) to drink. And Eoin and I ordered family style: so noodles, salad, gyoza, and vegan takoyaki. One of the specialties of Osaka is takoyaki, which are octopus balls. You can find this street food very easily in Osaka and there are plenty of stalls around Dotonburi that serve it. But at this restaurant they had a vegan version. Of all the foods I tried in Japan, gonna be honest this was my least favourite one because of the texture – it was kinda gooey and slimy, but I’m glad I tried it. Better to try something and know you don’t like it than to heave never tried it at all and you’re wondering what it’s like. For dessert we had mango shaved ice.
We decided to get back to the Airbnb early enough because we had a day trip to Nara ahead of us, so let’s talk about that!
Day Trip: Nara
Nara is a very popular day trip for those visiting Osaka or Kyoto and for good reason. It only takes an hour to get there from Osaka by train and for Kyoto, even closer at about 40 minutes. Looking at friends who have visited Japan’s Instagrams, I’d frequently see people going to Nara Deer Park and I thought it looked really cool and I knew we couldn’t miss it. As a kid, I loved seeing deer and I’ve always wanted to get close to one, but could never do so because deer are afraid of us and run away. But in Nara it’s different. You can get close to the deer and feed them these crackers and they’ll bow for you. Crackers are sold at various stations and vendors only take cash for them, each bundle of crackers is 200 yen. Careful because these deer flock to anyone with crackers like a moth to a flame, so keep most of your crackers out of reach of the deer, and to maximise your crackers, break them into pieces. The deer often will famously bow for the crackers, how cool is Japan, the deer have manners. What’s your excuse?
Besides deer, there are some other things to see like temples, gardens, and museums. First thing we did when we got to Nara was get some fresh mochi from a stand called Nakatanidou. And it’s hot! First time I ever had hot mochi. If you get there early in the morning, there is not too much of a wait, but if you go in the afternoon it’s quite busy. After having a snack, we walked to Kōfuku-ji before making our way to the deer park.
There are quite a few shrines and temples, but we decided to go to one of the most famous Buddhist temples, Tōdai-ji, which was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples in Nara. It is famous for having the world’s largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana (Daibutsu in Japanese). This temple was founded in the 700s, but as you can expect the temple you see is not that old, as it’s been reconstructed multiple times since then. With its long history, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you’re an English speaker, they have a tour guide there who gives a short talk about the temple’s history, but it is not a walking tour.
Afterwards, it was time for lunch so we walked across town to a vegan/gluten-free restaurant called onwa. I personally don’t have issues eating gluten, but I have a skin condition called keratosis that seems to get better if I consume less gluten (you’ll never get me to stop eating bread and pasta though lol). It’s a small restaurant so we had to wait a little bit to get in, but it was worth the wait. Eoin had a taco plate while I opted for the karaage bowl, as karaage is my favourite Japanese dish. Before going vegetarian, I loved eating chicken nuggets and a lot of the time when I eat meat substitutes, I pick a chicken substitute. The desserts looked really nice so we ordered a cake and some matcha ice cream. A big reason for this trip is it was a foodie trip and you know, you only live once!
Afterwards we walked around and looked at gift shops before Eoin found a bakery and bought some pastries before taking the train back to Osaka. If you have a week in Osaka or Kyoto, definitely check out Nara!
Evening in Osaka: Pinball Wizard!
My mum decided to stay behind at the Airbnb to relax and we went out to an arcade to play pinball and go to an entertainment centre to play ping pong. Japan is a country that is perfect for night owls to visit because of the great photography opportunities with the city lights and the nightlife, and I don’t just mean drinking and clubbing, that there are things to do at night. In Europe, you’ll often see that city centres are dead after like 5 or 6 PM after offices close down (except for nightclubs and pubs), but in big cities in Japan, not so! You can get a bite to eat late at night, you can go shopping, you can go to the arcade, or go to an entertainment centre for bowling. In fact, if you’re a morning person, expect a lot of shops and attractions to be closed. Arcades are a great place to go if you want to use up some of your change, as a lot of things in Japan are still cash only.
The pinball arcade we went to was called The Silver Ball Planet and it has a wide range of pinball machines that are rock band themed and TV and movie themed. A little something for everyone who loves pop culture. I especially loved all the classic rock themed machines and you know I had to play The Who’s Tommy pinball machine! The cool music and pop culture themed machines are going to be more expensive to play, of course, but the cheaper machines can be found up front.
Last Day in Osaka: Amerikamura and a beautiful sunset
After three straight days in Kyoto, we spent our last day in the Kansai region in Osaka so we wouldn’t have to travel very far. My parents and my brother decided to go to the zoo, while Eoin and I decided to check out Amerikamura, which is basically American Village. In that area there are quite a few vintage shops, but these mostly sell streetwear and 90s/early 2000s stuff, so not my idea of vintage, but those who are nostalgic for this era will love it. Even though it’s not my personal taste in fashion, I love seeing old t-shirts of 90s cartoons. There’s also a mini Statue of Liberty there, so you know it’s America Town.
We did a little bit of shopping there and at a secondhand shop called Closet Child I found a dream piece of clothing, a frilly gothic lolita shirt from the famous brand Atelier Pierrot, a special treat for myself! At this point, I was kind of burnt out from shopping because we had already done most of our shopping early on. Another small purchase was a mini Mary Quant mirror from a gachapon – I got the pink one! One of the things I love about Japan is how popular Mary Quant is here. They have physical stores where they sell handbags, clothing, accessories, and makeup.
We did one last walk around Dotonburi. We wanted to go on the ferris wheel at the Don Quijote there, but sadly it was closed. But I got some beautiful sunset pictures and pictures of the city lights. For dinner, we went to Mercy Vegan Factory, a completely vegan restaurant with some Korean dishes. Food was really nice.
Anyway, that’s the end of my Osaka blog post, stay tuned for a blog post of three action-packed days in Kyoto and then Seoul!
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