Sake to me Baby – Japan Day Six

Today we said goodbye to Tokyo and flew to Osaka. We are so excited to be going to Osaka! It’s just so much more laid back and the food is just phenomenal.

We were going to be leaving from Haneda airport rather than Narita. It’s the first time either of us has used Haneda and it was so smooth!! Normally when we leave from Narita there’s huge lines and throngs of people. Very long wait times. Today it just couldn’t have been easier!

We were waiting at the gate and the staff were about to announce that they were going to start boarding. They made the announcement noise then all bowed in unison before saying that boarding was about to commence. Then before they called for boarding, they all bowed in unison again. I’ve never seen anything like it!

I have to say I like this bowing thing. I think it shows respect and makes people feel good. I love that part of their culture. They look genuine when they’re doing it too. At least, that’s been my experience.

Because it was a full plane and hubby and I fly standby, we weren’t able to sit together.
I didn’t mind so much because it was only going to be for an hour and truly, I was looking forward to having that time to myself. He was going to be sitting directly behind me.
I turned to see how he was going and saw he was sat between two Japanese girls so he was pretty happy himself!

I have never liked landings and take offs though and hubby was worried I’d be scared so as the plane was taking off, I feel something on my arm and realise he’d reached through the seats to reassure me.

How cute is that!!

Lucky for him, he scored a few points.

We landed at Osaka International Airport and NOT Kansai International where we’ve normally landed. This airport was pretty impressive as well!! Although, I felt it looked a bit dated. It looked like we were walking into a plush hotel of the seventies. I loved it! And it was a nice easy breezy experience to get out of there and onto the monorail that was going to take us to our station.

The monorail was good. Maybe a little pricey but you have no choice if you want to catch a train to Osaka central

We had time to kill so we rented some lockers at Umeda station and went to find somewhere to have lunch.

The place we found did not have an English menu but we’re experienced Japan travellers now so figured, how wrong could it go?

The pic on the left is one of the menus we were given. I pointed to the second one when they came to get our order, even though I didn’t know exactly what that was. Our server was trying to tell me something about that selection that involved a six and a zero. She didn’t speak English. Did she mean it would take 60 minutes to make? Or not available until 6pm? In the end I chose from another menu. I didn’t take a picture of that one but you can see how much food we got!! And all of this food cost us about 1720 yen which is currently about $23 AUD

Yes it’s a ton of food!! We hadn’t eaten anything so we were starving.
This is the after shot…

We did well!! I liked most of what I ate. The eggy thing with the brown and white sauce on it was sort of nice but had some strange tastes in it here and there and I really really hate those sauces. If I’d known that’s what I’d ordered I would have said no sauce.
The noodles were great! and so was the miso soup and rice.

They had some salt and condiments on the table, including this mayonnaise type thing. I’m pretty sure this should have been in the fridge right? I don’t understand why they don’t seem to think refrigeration is important here.

We had an hour or so, so we walked around the Hankyu and Daimaru department stores. Went into the Hep5 building. So looking forward to looking around properly. Honestly we were too tired and just looking forward to getting to our room.

We got into our air bnb room and this apartment is AMAZING!!! OMG! Probably the best air bnb apartment we’ve had. It’s spacious, it’s NEW and it’s in a great location near Dotonbori. I’m so excited to be here!!!

Hubby, being of the male variety, quickly claimed the remote even though everything here is in Japanese, and before too long, accidentally muted the television.
He didn’t know what button he pressed though so was not able to unmute it. We then spent the next hour and a bit trying to figure out how to unmute this thing. We looked online, we tried to look at the manual but to no avail. In the end we had to leave it or we wouldn’t have gone out tonight.

We’re a short walk from our favourite area in Japan and it was such a nice feeling to be back there again.
Dotonbori. There were so many tourists around!! So many people walking around in awe of what they were seeing. Shops, food, attractions and beautiful views. The canals are so pretty at night. I took a few pics along the way.

We stopped in at Daiso on the way back to our apartment because it was there. I think hubby is starting to love this store too although he would never admit it.

We wanted a few things for our apartment. The line to check out was so long! I was looking at the items in the shelves as the line slowly moved and picked up a few more things. I noticed they also sell wine here! I know they sell it in the supermarkets and convenience stores here but didn’t expect to find it in Daiso as well.

It’s been a long day and I’m so looking forward to getting out and about tomorrow.
By the way, we are learning so much Japanese!

Oyasuminasai

In search of Cherry Blossom – Part Seven

One thing I haven’t talked about yet is the amount of bicycles here. Everyone rides. They are more likely to get on a bike than in a car. In fact, you’ll see “bike parks” more often than car parks and they’ll be full. A lot of the bikes aren’t even locked because that’s just the way they roll here.

The one thing I still can’t get used to is how the bikes will just whizz past you on the footpath. There is no right of way. There is no “keep left” or “keep right”. They will just come wherever they think they will fit and they go first. Walk at your own peril. I’m just so amazed that we haven’t seen an accident yet. Whatever the law is, it doesn’t matter, bikes rule and that’s that.

This morning I again walked down to Dotonbori. I really love being out first thing in the morning and now that the weather has warmed up it’s just so beautiful.

Hubby and I were debating whether to travel to another town by train again or just go to the Aquarium which is somewhere I really wanted to go. I couldn’t see the sense in being on the train for a couple of hours to travel somewhere when there were still things here we hadn’t seen. I couldn’t justify losing a minimum of four hours for a return trip to somewhere.

So off we went, bound for the Aquarium! I was pretty excited!!

We got off at Osakako Station and passed by signs for Legoworld.  We didn’t go in but we DID see this giraffe which was pretty cool… There’s also a huge Ferris Wheel here.

There were quite a lot of people, even given the fact that it was a Tuesday afternoon.

As soon as you walk in, you find yourself  walking through the aquarium with fish swimming above and alongside you. It’s pretty freaky!

And you follow a path that takes you through to different sections. Marine life from different areas of the globe. There is lots of information in English so that was good!

The penguins look so cute right!!

There were quite a few of these crabs in the tank and they just looked like huge ugly spiders!!! I was NOT a fan! I have to admit though, they may be ugly but they also look pretty magnificent.

The Jelly Fish area was pretty amazing!

We got to an area near the end where we were able to touch the fish (and sting rays) in the tank.  I did it too and it was so yucky slimy!!
They had a few warning signs up but I don’t know that I’d be comfortable letting young children just put their hands in the tanks

 

 

I did take tons more photos but don’t want to bore you all. We had a really good time in there and I’m glad we ended up going.

Next stop was Universal Studios!
Well, not Universal Studio’s itself but the Universal City walk next to it.
We found a free ferry to take us over which was handy because if we were going to go by train, Google Maps was telling us to allow over an hour!

The ferry ride was only a few minutes and if you look close enough at the pic on the left, you might see it on the left hand side of the picture.

The exit/entrance for Universal Studios looks out onto this walk and there are a lot of American Chains here.

I even got to sit on Forrest Gump’s bench!

We had a very late lunch at this Italian place. I’m pretty sure it’s a chain here. Hubby wasn’t happy with what he ordered (I tease him that he always orders the wrong thing) but I was pretty happy with mine!! Especially that Dori! Geez that stuff’s good!

By the time we left this area it was getting towards 6pm and we’d been walking for most of the day. Hubby really want to go to Cosmos square Station. I’m not sure why because I hadn’t seen what he was looking at for this area but I trusted him…

We got there, and it looked pretty barren. He led us to this “interesting” building. It seemed like there were a lot of Government Departments there… There was also an International Ferry station. He kept trying to build it up but I wasn’t fooled. The best thing I found there was a Daiso Store.

It was pretty light when we entered but a short time later it was dark. We took a few photos of this interesting area outside.

but there weren’t many people around and it just seemed like we shouldn’t be there. Nothing was happening..

I was so glad to be on the train back home…

And in case anyone doesn’t know, I’ll leave you with instructions on how to use a Western Toilet. Handy information.

 

Vay Cay to Jay Jay – Part Sixteen

Our time is coming to an end and we’re kind of running out of new things to do but I also feel like I want to spend more time around this Dotonbori area.

There is just so much to see and do!

So many different foods! So many people. It both terrifies and excites me.

This is not the place to be if you don’t like crowds!

Hubby was having a bit of a lie in this morning so I took myself for a walk and really enjoyed watching people going about their business.

Most of the shops aren’t open until 10am. That may sound late but they also stay open very late. I really wanted to get some junk cute things from Daiso. I know we have this store in Australia but I’ve never been in one in Australia.

I know there’s just cheap, nothing goods in there but it’s exciting!!

So are the 100 yen stores! I just love them!!
“This is really only 100 yen??” I find myself exclaiming.

It’s much easier to shop in these stores when hubby isn’t around.
Look at the cute little Hello Kitty bag I got for 100 yen. I think it might actually be a bag to carry cold/fridge foods but I’m going to use it as a make up bag for as long as I can. It’s just too cute!

When I got back to the room, hubby and I had a breakfast of coffee and naughty bakery goods (Oh god I love them so much) then set off to walk through the streets and I snapped a couple of pictures along the way.

 

I took that pic on the left to show how every apartment has an area for bike parking. There aren’t that many places for cars and usually they’re off site (not in the same area as the apartment block) but bike parking you’ll see EVERYWHERE!!!
It’s pretty stressful walking down the street. We’ve seen lots of near misses between people on bikes and cars/buses/pedestrians but never actually seen a collision. I don’t even know how we haven’t because they’re crazy on their bikes!!!

As we walked we talked about places we’ve been and foods we’ve eaten and we started reminiscing about the huge bowls of ramen we got at this particular food court. Unbeknownst to me, hubby started to walk towards it (we were about four kilometres away) I had no idea. He didn’t tell me, he just kept walking.
It was about 2pm at this stage and I was starting to get pretty hungry. I kept pointing out restaurants saying “Mmmm that looks delicious, should we go there?” but he would barely grunt out an answer.
I guess it was his little way of annoying surprising me.

We got to our favourite food court eventually but when we went to the place we ordered the ramen from, the menu looked different. We couldn’t tell what it had been that we used to order!!
The girl at the counter didn’t speak English (we were trying to ask if a particular dish had meat in it. Pork? Chicken?) So she told us to wait and got someone else who also didn’t understand us.
In the end, hubby pointed to some things on the menu and said we’ll just take that.
(above)
I’m not sure that there was any meat in it. There could have been very very very pink bacon in it. Perhaps some tofu like thing… Not sure, but it was pretty delicious!
In the middle there were like fried noodles. I’m not sure exactly. They were crispy. I don’t know the name for them.

We also chose to drink Calpis which is everywhere here and a delight to say out loud.

“Oh I just loving drinking Calpis.
Would you like to drink Calpis?
I thought you’d never ask!”

It was like a more delicious version of lemonade. I really liked it. No diet version though so it’s unlikely I’ll be having it again. Diet drinks aren’t easy to come by here by the way. You will find them, but not as easy as you find them in Australia and many restaurants don’t offer any sort of diet drinks.

So although we enjoyed what we ate, it wasn’t what we were expecting.

We consoled ourselves by visiting the 100 yen bakery downstairs.
OH.MY.GOD this place!
I could have eaten the whole store but we only picked two varieties.

 

I liked the one on the right a lot more. It had a chocolate filling too! The berries were soooo sweet. I just loved it. The other was either a baked cheesecake or had a custard filling. I wasn’t quite sure.
It too was delicious but not as good as the first.

Tomorrow is our last day in Osaka and we’re capping it off with a visit to Rinku Town!! I’m so excited!! The train has taken us past this place every time we’ve arrived or left but we’ve never stopped. It’s full of outlet malls apparently!

I’m not even a shopper but I’m excited!!! Hubby, where’s your wallet??