Skip to main content

Japan September 2016 - Part 13 Osaka - End

Our last destination was Osaka. We stayed for 2 nights there but on the last day we had our flight home early in the morning. 

The trip to Osaka from Kobe after our steak lunch was smooth, it took merely half an hour to get there. We arrived at Osaka Station before dark and walked to our hotel. For our two night stay, I had booked New Hankyu Hotel Osaka, where the stop for the Limousine bus to the airport was. I imagined we would have had to leave very early in the morning so I wanted less hassle in getting to the bus stop.

At Osaka Station

View from our hotel

Elevator button

Evacuation chute instruction on the 9th floor

One of the things I was looking forward to in Osaka was to visit Atelier nani IRO, a boutique shop for Nani IRO fabrics. They are hard to come by outside Japan so I was very excited. It was only about 2 km away from our hotel so we decided to walk there. On the way, we found a tree that looked like a Canadian Maple tree but we weren't sure.





We passed a Shell gas station on the way and here's a picture of their hanging gas pumps. Pretty cool, I'd say!


We finally arrived at Atelier to nani IRO. I was like a kid in a candy store, DH got tired of waiting for me he took off to scout the neighborhood for a while. When he came back, I was not quite done yet. The poor man! Lol.



We left the store with a few kilograms worth of fabrics that DH carried for me and I obligingly followed DH to a beer spot just a few buildings away. I ordered a Japanese grape juice for myself and it came in a wine glass :D We sat by the bar and the bartender was very friendly and chatty. It was actually quite fun!



Next, we wanted to have dinner. On our very first visit to Osaka a few years prior, we had kaiten sushi (sushi on conveyer belts) in Namba shopping street. DH mentioned that he wanted to go there again. So we headed to Namba area but weren't sure if we would be able to find the same restaurant. We passed by a kaiten sushi restaurant and went in, knowing that it wasn't the same one and ate there anyway. It was pretty good, though nowhere near Midori Sushi that we had in Tokyo just the week before. Little did we know, had we walked a bit farther down the same street, we would have found the very same restaurant we had been looking for before. Oh well...



We purposely didn't eat much at the kaiten sushi because we wanted to try other food around Osaka. We were in the food central of Japan afterall. I had this idea of going to Dotonbori area and have a snack by the river. However, when we got there nothing by the river looked interesting enough, so we went over to a parallel street and decided to try these attractive looking gyoza and noodle. There were some confusion about ordering gyoza here. If you want to buy for takeout, you lineup at the front. If you want to eat in but ordering only gyoza, you also need to lineup at the front. If you want to eat in and ordering other food with or without gyoza, you can go directly upstairs and get a table. So how were we supposed to understand this when very little English were spoken? Lol...




Do you think the actual gyoza looked like the giant building display? I'd say very close!


Roast beef ramen

The Dotonbori shopping street had banners up representing different countries at that time. Here is the Indonesian banner. 


We stayed late at the Dotonbori area but we made sure not to miss the last train back. We still had our JR Passes active so we went to the nearest JR Station to catch the train to Osaka Station.



New Hankyu Hotel
Cookies from my friend in Kobe
The following day was practically our last day in Japan. There was nothing else that we really wanted to see in Osaka, so we pretty much just bummed around near Osaka Station. It was a bit of a waste considering we still had our JR Passes.

Crayon in Tsutaya Osaka Station

Osaka Station

Light sabre chopsticks at Kiddyland Osaka Station
Got myself a sewing pattern






In the end, we got really tired of browsing aimlessly, we decided to head back to Kobe to have more Kobe beef! Lol.. We went back to Steakland, but the street level location that was smaller. It was very early for dinner so we got seats right away. The restaurant however, was quite full. We were just lucky! This time, we opted for the fancy stuff. Premium tender steak and Premium Kobe steak. We were already there, so might as well have a taste of their top of the notch stuff, right?! Our meal costed us almost four times our lunch on the previous day. I must say, they were soooo good! They just melted in your mouth...






That evening, way past midnight, we walked to Don Quijote because I wanted to buy some Kitkat and Pocky for souvenirs. Alas! This location did not have any! We were sooo tired in the end, especially because the walk to and from the hotel became longer since the shortcuts through the station were already closed.

The following morning, we hopped on the bus to get to the airport, and flew home.


Upon arrival in Jakarta, we were still on vending machine mode. We bought this Tehbotol from a vending machine at the airport. Well, it was not cold at all! Check out that annoyed face... Lol






 This post concludes my Japan September 2016 series, thank you for faithfully reading my blog. Untul next time!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nintendo Switch Sleeve Tutorial

Hi! I'm Kirana from woofkiki.blogspot.co.id . I am going to write an introduction for this blog post. We bought a Nintendo Switch in Japan.  I really liked it and played with it almost everyday. If you're wondering what a Nintendo Switch is, it is a video game where you can basically  "switch" everything. The joy-cons and even the game! You can also connect it to your TV. It would be nice to bring it around with you, but when you put it in your bag... Oh no! The screen scratched! So, this is a sleeve that will fix that. Let's get started!😊 Kirana Now the tutorial (by Kirana's mom)... 1. Make your pattern according to the picture below. It is basically a 6"x24" rectangle with a semi circle at one end. Note: this is not a printable pattern 1. Cut your outer fabric, lining, and batting(optional). In this tutorial, I used minky for lining and a pre-quilted fabric for the cover, so I didn't need extra batting. For batting, I recomm...

Motykas in Asia 2016 Part 7 - West Java

One day after we arrived in Jakarta from Phuket, we went on a road trip to Bandung, West Java. We were on a roll! Hahaha. Our first destination was the White Crater, a beautiful place located in Ciwidey, outside Bandung.  We left our home at around 7 am and arrived at the crater at almost noon. It was a loooong drive. Nonetheless, the view was breathtaking. It was a bit chilly up there, even the Winnipegers pulled out their jackets. :D The crater was pale green with strong sulphur smell, they recommend a maximum of 15 minutes at the bottom. Around the crater were serene looking tree barks with little or no leaves. During a certain time of the day, there would usually be fog coming down over the crater but we didn't get to see it. We spent about an hour at the crater and we moved on to the Rancabali Tea Plantation about 3 km away for some pictures. Miss Kiki was so...

Spring in Egypt Part 9 - Luxor Temple

At the time when we arrived at Luxor temple it was already after dusk and it became a little difficult to take photos. I compensated by setting my camera ISO to 4000 to make tripod-less picture-taking possible even though the grains became more visible. Just like the previous nights, the moon still looked round to me. I wasn't sure which one of those moons was the actual full moon. We walked around the temple first with Michael for explanations about the temple. In the distance we were able to hear the adzan calling the people for prayer. Situated in the east bank, the construction of the temple was started by Amenhotep III, continued and finished by the famous King Tut and Horemheb, and then added on to by Rameses II and finally by Alexander the Great. Unlike the other temples we had previously visited, this temple is not dedicated to a single cult/god. Instead, it is used as a place to rejuvenate kingship. May of the kings were said to have been coronated at this temple. ...