Osaka - Japan

All of our Japan itinerary, hotel and travel information can be downloaded here.

Day 1

We arrived at Osaka Kansai Airport late afternoon.  We then made our way upstairs from arrivals and headed towards the train station within the airport.  Here, in the JR office, we were able to exchange our vouchers to get our pre-booked JR passes and mention the day we wished to have them activated.

From here we made our way to our budget hotel accommodation, Hotel the Lutheran, which is just a stones throw from Osaka Jo (Osaka Castle).  All our hotel and travel information is available on our itinerary here.  The hotel was pleasant and the staff welcoming, every hotel we stayed in had a bath (not full sized) and the type of toilet you would expect from Japan with a heated seat and lots of weird yet wonderful squirty options!

Gyoza (Japanese Dumplings)

Day 2

The following day we visited the castle, which was great and free to enter aside from the museum which is the fancy looking building in the photographs.  It was worth it though, and there were around 8 floors of Osakan and Japanese history with a cool viewing platform at the top.  It is nice to walk around the castle grounds in general and get a sense of the architecture and more traditional times.  There are a couple of souvenir shops as well as places to buy snacks.  We happily spent 2-3 hours here.

Osaka Castle

We didn’t have too much planned for our first full day, which meant that we were able to head to our next location relatively early that evening, the must-see area of Dotonbori.  It’s famous for the vibrancy of the restaurants, street-food hawkers and elabourate LED and 3D decorations along the main strip.  Some say you have to come on an empty stomach, some say you have to avoid eating here as it’s overpriced and touristic.  Whilst it was dark when we visited, it was still earlyish so the crowds weren’t as mad as people say it can get, we tried a bit of steak from a street food vendor (which was expensive) then found a restaurant with a lot of locals dining in which was much better value.  It was also novel for us, ordering from the machine outside before going in.  

Dotonbori at night

The area really is alive and worth a visit when in Osaka and embodies a lot of the cliché, albeit fun, Japanese craziness you imagine before coming here.   They say you should have your photo taken with the running ‘Glico Man’ who’s the symbol of the area.  I’m not sure why and to be honest I’m a little confused about Japanese culture in general, such as the fascination with anime and all things cute.  I guess that’s the main reasons why we’re here, to learn more about the people and this wonderful, bizarre country. 

Glico dude is behind us, honest