We spent 4 days in Osaka, including the day we arrived from Tokyo and the day we left for Kyoto. We enjoyed the energy that this city has, the people and of course food! Here are what we did on our first day in Osaka. Enjoy! 🙂
8:00 Shitenno-ji Temple
We took a night bus at Shinjuku the previous night, and arrived at Osaka Station around 6:00 am. We moved to our hostel by train, dropped our big bags there (unfortunately we couldn’t check in), and left for sightseeing. It was too early to start a day because every place only opens from 9:00 or 10:00 am, but we didn’t have choice… (uh… should we wait until 3 pm, the check-in time? lol)
First we went to Shitenno-ji Shrine, the closest shrine to our hostel. We took a bus for about 15 minutes and it cost ¥210. Shrines normally open 24 hours, unlike temples, so you can get inside any time. At the shrine we found big pond full of turtles (what a peaceful morning), and we pretty much looked at them the entire time… (because who’s ever seen that many turtles at the same time?!) There was a junior high/high school inside the temple, so we saw many girls passing by the temple.
9:00 Osaka Castle
Then we took a bus again for 20 minutes, and arrived at the Osaka Castle. We spent quite some time there – walking around the Osaka Castle Park, taking a selfie in front of the castle, exploring the museum, and enjoying the view from the top of the castle! Personally I relly like the museum inside the castle. You can learn the background behind this castle, and all the human drama that happened in a long history, in such as videos, illustrations and miniature models of people. We started from the bottom of the castle, stopped at each floor (inside the castle is museum!), and reached at the top, where you can enjoy 360 degree view of the city.
12:00 Lunch
If you come to Osaka, you have to try famous food in Osaka – Okonomiyaki, a Japanese pizza. You can find so many different kind of Okonimiyaki restaurants in this city. We went to Dotonbori to have lunch, because it is one of the best places in Osaka where you can find the most choices in food. We found one Okonomiyaki restaurant with all you can eat deal for 90 minutes for about ¥2000. You can not only try Okonomiyaki with different ingrediets, but you can also order salads, vegetables, and monja. (another famous food in Osaka!) We had so much food there, and were completely full when we left the place.
14:00 Dotonbori
After the lunch we walked around Dotonbori area. You can take subway or train to Namba Station, and walk for about 5 minutes. Here you can mainly find different restaurant, street food and sweets. (You can always find me in this kind of place…) There are also a lot of clothing stores and other kinds near by – it is probably the busiest part of the town. We wanted to try so many different food, but decided to come back next time, since we couldn’t eat any more!
14:30 Game Center
We decided to go back to our hostel and take a rest, because it was almost the time for check-in, and we were exhausted from the bus ride of the previous night. On the way back to the train Station, a game center came into my sight, and I had to stop by, because I hadn’t been there for a long time! We played the popular drum game called “Taikono-Tatsujin”. You can also try crane games with variety of prizes – you can literally spend hours there! We had so much fun, and I’m sure we’re gonna come back here soon… 😀
We almost passed out when we came back to our hostel. Next time we found out it was already late at night (um… 5 hours nap…) We decided to sleep in that night, and prepare for the next day.
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