#TRIPPinJAPAN (Part 2) - Osaka Day 1, 2 & 3

I departed for Japan on the 26th March and returned on the 11th April. So during our 17-day stay in the land of sushi and takoyaki, here's our plan:

Osaka (4 days) > Kyoto (6 days) > Tokyo (7 days) > Osaka (flight back to Singapore)

We arrived at the Kansai Airport at 1pm Japan time on a sunny Thursday. I instantly regretted wearing a skirt for the midnight flight because despite the weather forecasts, Osaka was still so cold. I knew the weather was going to be relatively cold, but I didn't expect it to hit 9 degrees on a daily basis. But it did, and Trisha and I suffered quite the fair bit cause we packed as if we were visiting during summer LOL.

For our whole three days in Osaka, we stayed at Hotel Taiyo which is located just directly outside Dobutsuen-mae station!! Having a station in the vicinity of your hotel is so important I can't stress this enough.

It's a more of a bagpackers' inn than a hotel, but that works just fine with us. We were open to the idea of having a shared lobby and shower as long as we had a proper place to sleep in to ourselves. We paid S$134 for our three nights stay, which makes it S$67 per person. Cheap isn't it??

When we first got to our room, we were kinda shocked cause the door was actually super small?! It was just slightly taller than the both of us, which isn't very high considering how we hover around 5 feet tall. But I absolutely loved the idea of sleeping in a tatami room with a proper futon and that's what Hotel Taiyo offers! It's a pretty small space, but it accommodates us fine with the basic amenities.

Just around our neighbourhood is Shinsekai, Osaka's "new world" and district that is home to many eateries, the Tsukenkaku Tower and Spa World. Well, these are the famous tourist attractions but it didn't particularly seem interesting to us, so we gave them a pass. Spa World is quite cool though. It's basically a huge sento (public bath) that has different themed baths (European and Asian) that alternates between genders every month. Trisha and I wanted to try the Asian ones but the month wasn't in our favour, so... ):

But it's fine since we still had the full sento experience while we were at Kyoto hehe. I'll save the details for the Kyoto post.

On our first night, we had some superb takoyaki (330¥) that beats Singapore's hands down, and Osaka's well known speciality, Kushikatsu. It's basically various battered and deep friend foods on skewers.

Our first visit into a Japanese restaurant was quite intimidating. Everything on the menu is ruthlessly Japanese. We tried asking for an English menu but the waiters hardly understood any of our requests until we used Google Translate to help convey our message across. Ever since that night, Trisha and I made it a point to memorise how to ask for an English menu in Japanese. Which, if you're wondering, is "Eigo no menyu arimasu ka?" You should keep that in mind too.

I'm not an avid fan of deep fried battered stuff but some of the skewers (like salmon) was pretty good. Anyway, while you're at Osaka, you must and should try their kushikatsu and takoyaki.

That night before we returned back to our hotel, we visited the convenience store just located a couple of metres away from Hotel Taiyo to grab ourselves some random snacks and drinks because well, it's Japan and their stuff from convenience stores are quite nice LOL. I instantly fell in love with the strawberry flavoured drinks. Trisha fell in love with their instant soups.

Hotel Taiyo also happens to have a small public bath/spa (it's something like a mini sento) that's opened to different genders at a different time slot. It's opened to the females from 9pm to midnight, and that's exactly what we needed after a super cold night out.

We got our first (mini) public bath experience there and I'll admit it was quite awkward initially LOL.  In fact, since I returned from Japan, one of the first few questions my friends would ask was, "you go public bath naked with everyone else not weird meh??" LOL.
Well, is weird going to stop you from trying? It sure as hell isn't going to get in my way of my well-deserved bath of steaming water to rid of the frost in my toes. Anyways, you'll stop giving a shit to how you or others look after a while because you really do want to relax and enjoy the hot water.

And that's really the best way to end a day of long walks and travel.

Day 1's spending:
Starbucks: 300¥
Icoca card: 2000¥
Takoyaki: 350¥
Kushikatsu: 1180¥
Family Mart: 1000¥
TOTAL: 4830¥

Day 2 - Osaka (Dotonburi, Shinsaibashi & Namba)

The next morning, we had our breakfast at this quaint little cafe just next to Hotel Taiyo - Maison de Cafe Causerie. I was a little taken aback by the smell of cigarettes when I entered the cafe but apparently, most food places in Japan permits smoking indoors. So we were secondhand smokers almost everywhere we went. 

Anyway, the cafe was opened by an old friendly couple and a friend of theirs. They serve pretty affordable breakfast sets of toast, egg and coffee but what I didn't expect to try in this small little cafe was the Japanese slow-brewed coffee!! 

To be honest, I didn't even know they existed? LOL. But after seeing how the old man used these weird cylinders-looking things and ICE (who uses ice to make hot coffee?!) to brew our coffee, I was intrigued and Google happened. Anyway, it was a super cool sight and the coffee wasn't what I expected, but in a good way. The robust coffee was smooth yet bold, and definitely a revelation of senses. I'm not a coffee enthusiast, but I do appreciate some good ol hot coffee in the cold weather. :)

For the rest of the day, we took spent our time at Dotonburi and Shinsaibashi, the popular food and shopping districts in the center of Osaka. In short, we did quite a fair bit of shopping. They have so many cute apparels and I was tempted to buy them but they're probably too cute for Singapore... But shopping is not cheap there. It's quite expensive actually ):
I got myself a few rolls of film (2052¥), a bag (3230¥), soft serve ice-cream (350¥) and a few knick knacks here and there. And we also tried the best takoyaki at Dotonburi!! Queued at least 30 minutes for it but the 550¥ snack was more than worth the while. I really miss the takoyaki there.

Dinner was some super overpriced yakitori (marinated skewers of meat) and yakisoba (fried noodles). We got tricked by the tourist trap they laid for us - nice pictures with english words and pretty food moulds. It was nice, no doubt but it was at least S$40 (2 pax) for just a few skewers of meat??
My heart goes out to the money I splurged on this meal. It's not the most expensive but for the amount we got... ):









The only sad thing is that the stores in Japan close relatively early? More so for the Kansai region. At about 7pm all stores start to close so by the time it's 8pm it's like a ghost town. We spent the rest of the night in one of the shopping malls at Namba because their cafes and restaurants open till about 9pm (other shops close around 7-8pm) where I tried soy latte for the very first time. Not bad.

When we went back to Hotel Taiyo, it was about 11pm. We had our usual hot bath before we paid the convenience store a visit. Typically for our entire 17 days in Japan, we visited the convenience store almost every night LOL. Ah cravings.

Day 2's spending:
Cafe de Maison Causerie: 320¥
Bagpack: 3230¥
Roasted tea ice-cream: 350¥
Takoyaki: 550¥
Leggings: 200¥
Souvenirs: 2559¥
Provia film: 2052¥
Baskin' Robins: 350¥
To The Forest Cafe: 720¥
Yakitori: 2026¥
Family Mart: 500¥
TOTAL: 13247¥

Day 3 - Osaka (Osaka Castle, Amemura & Shinsaibashi)

We got a little lost while looking for Osaka Castle even with the help of Google Maps but we eventually found our way. There's a lot of walking to do if you're gonna do a lot of sight-seeing so never forget to get wifi while you travel!!

Anyway, when we arrived at the side entrance of the Osaka Castle, the sight of cherry blossoms was more than just breathtaking. And the weather was great!! It wasn't freezing cold and the sun was up. I would love to have more picturesque and cooling mornings like these.