In your planning for Japan you may think that seeing a modern city like Tokyo means that you don’t need to see another modern Japanese city such as Osaka…think again!
Osaka is filled with unique and wonderful sights that will easily keep you busy for a few days – antiquity in modern surroundings at the Osaka Museum of Housing & Living, a replica Eiffel tower that has a special Japanese ‘gameshow’ vibe, a mesmerising aquarium, and soaring city views from big wheels, tower decks and the beautiful castle.
Above all Osaka is known as the food capital of Japan, so if you like food and have fallen in love with Japanese food (as we have) then this is the city to visit! As they say in Japan at the start of a meal…Itadakimasu – “I humbly receive”.
Orientation
Osaka can be divided into Kita (the North”) around Osaka/Umeda Station and Minami (the South) around Namba Station. Kita is where you will find the shopping and business areas whilst Minami is where the fun is…
so it was not a hard choice for Matt to find us a hotel away from the shopping and amidst the fun at the Daiwa Roynet Uehonmachi hotel – the immediate vicinity was nothing special but the hotel was good value with all the mod cons and well located to visit the sights.
If you are travelling from Kyoto you will be happily overwhelmed by all the transport options in Osaka as there are trains and metros running almost everywhere, you can use your JR rail pass on the JR lines that run through the city, but be aware that there are a lot of private lines where you can not use the pass, so we recommend getting an ‘Amazing Osaka’ pass that will give you inclusive travel everywhere plus entrance to all the top sights, lasting for 1 or 2 days.
The Food Capital of Japan
What better way to see the city than with a food tour, so this was our first introduction to the city and its food. We had booked a tour with All Star Osaka Walk and spent the morning with Akie, who was a wonderful guide to tell us about the sights but also to find us the best and tastiest food.
Starting with breakfast at the Tsurukashi Market where we got to shop for our choice of veggies and pickles along with some sublime fatty tuna straight from the morning’s delivery.
What is great with the tour is that Akie was on hand to identify and translate all the weird and wonderful food that we were seeing (and to get little taste of everything) a nice change from our usual wanderings with open mouthed incomprehension!
Next to the ‘New World’ area (Shin-Sekai), named for when the World’s Fair was held here 100 years ago and where you will find Japan’s very own Eiffel tower (Tsutenkaku)
and everywhere a statue of Bilikan – the god of ‘what might have been’ where you can rub his feet for a bit of good luck!
Here you can try the local snack of kushikatsu – meat and vegetables that are skewered, battered and deep fried – along with a nice creamy cold glass of beer.
Have some Ikki for desert – a custard pastry in the shape of a fish.
Our tummies were now prepared for lunch at Ron – self proclaimed as being the home of ‘the best steak in the world’ – where we got to have Kobe beef that was tepanyaki’d in front of us.
An amazing taste where the steak literally melts in your mouth, no wonder this is one of the go to restaurants for the Japanese Prime Minister and visiting dignitaries. We finished our tour at Osaka train station, where if you go to the basement area you will find a massive food hall with everything on offer, here Akie treated us to a little bit of sake tasting with different qualities of sake,
we don’t yet have the connoisseurs palate to distinguish quality in sake, all we know is that they all tasted great!
Even without a guide you will still have an easy job to find great food in this city. Left to our own devices during our stay here a few of the most notable places for food that we found are as follows.
Kuromon Market was our daily destination for lunch where you can PYO (pick your own) sushi, seaweed, dombori, salmon and miso to create a fantastic lunch;
snack on more Kobe beef served from a street butcher; and try the Osakan Okonomiyaki (see our blog on Hiroshima for more about this).
Minami is where to go to for your evening food, like a foodies Disney World, with bright lights and big signs and everything you could want to eat.
It will be quite busy here, so just attach yourself to one of the many queues and be patient for some great food, such as classic sushi on a conveyor belt at Daikisuisan.
If you can’t wait then grab some freshly made octopus balls,where Lyssa was hypnotised by their making. You can walk off your evening food with a wander around Minami,
snapping pictures as you cross the river and get all the neon reflections and a nice long stroll back to Shinsaibashi station along Mido-suji-dori.
One final foodie shout out is to the udon restaurant of Miyoshiya, tucked away in Nipponbashi, here you can take courses in udon making or just enjoy the wonderful udon noodles where the owner looks exactly like his caricature of a super happy Japanese chef!
The sights you can not eat!
It’s not all about the food in Osaka…honest! With the amazing Osaka pass you will get access to plenty of interesting sights that make for a nice diversion whilst you are building up an appetite for your next meal.
The Osaka Museum of History – located in a high storied building that looks more like a bank than a museum, but the top floors have a replica of the Naniwa Palace that transports you back to ancient Japan and then you descend your way back to the 20th century over the next few floors of the museum.
The Osaka Museum of Housing and Living will keep you occupied for a good few hours with wonderful street recreations of Osaka from the Edo period all the way up to modern times.
A trip to the west of the city will take you out to the Tempozan big wheel, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but with great views across the whole of the city.
Just next door is the Osaka Aquarium – one of the largest in the world where the serene blue of the water and all the colourful fish can relax you into a couple of hours of respite from the busy world outside.
If you want to walk a bit more, then head to the Cosmo tower and ascend to the top of Osaka’s 2nd tallest building for far reaching views of the surrounds, if you are here in the evening then you will get a great view of the lights of the Tempozan big wheel and you will see what the weather will be like tomorrow (orange wheel = sun, green = cloudy, blue = rain).
To the north and Uemeda area – the Sky Observatory for a bird’s-eye view of Osaka, particularly good for sunset as the viewing deck is open air, so you wont have to deal with bothersome reflection on glass when trying to get that perfect dusky shot.
You will also find the Hep Five Big wheel nestled amongst the shops of Uemeda, a strange place for a big wheel as you are totally surrounded by buildings, but worth a spin if you have your ‘amazing pass’ as the narrative you get whilst going around is quite nice.
Day Tripping – Himeji & Sake
Whilst in Osaka we took the 90min ride out to Himeji and it’s ancient castle (from 1333), the largest and most visited castle in Japan and on that wonderful UNESCO to do list.
We were quite fortunate in our visit as it timed just a few months after a multi year restoration, so the castle was back to it’s full stately glory and shining bright white once again.
It is stunning from the outside and that is probably the main sight, whereas the inside follows the rules of Japanese simplicity, and not even the attraction of nightingale boards as you will find in Kyoto’s Nijo Castle.
Once you have explored the castle pop next door to the Koko-En gardens which is oh so Japanese with bamboo, little wooden bridges, Koi ponds and order everywhere.
We also tried our first tea ceremony, not having much of a clue what to do we followed the lead of a couple of other guests to kneel in a painful position (at least for Matt), bow, eat some sweet, bow, take tea, bow, drink, bow, listen to the old lady serving talk at us, bow…and then one more bow for luck and we departed none the wiser!
On your way back from Himeji to Osaka, you can stop off at Hanshin Sumiyoshi station to visit the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Company, whose little museum is entertaining and informative if you want to know a bit more about Sake…and to have some tastings!
Their motto is “To frindship for all time” and with their tasty sake this motto will always come true! And with this last glass of sake we come to the end of this blog and get ready to move on to Hiroshima, Kanpai and enjoy!
