Tue, 21 Feb 2023
I woke up early and went for breakfast Tsutaya Bookstore again. This is becoming like a morning routine for me. I took the opportunity to do some general reading and catch up on any urgent emails.
After breakfast, I headed back to the apartment. The plan today was to visit Osaka Castle. We walked to San Ban Gai and took the train to Tanimachi 4-chome station, the nearest station to Osaka Castle from our location.
As we exited the station, we passed by NHK’s main office in Osaka. It was an interesting looking building. NHK is the main broadcaster in Japan.
We walked along Miraiza towards Osaka Castle. We took a nice photo from the garden and after that headed to the ticket booth.
There was a queue but it was moving at a reasonable pace.
Once we were inside the castle, we took the lift up to the exhibitions. The ground floor has a few gift shops and the museum exhibitions starts at the floor above, all the way up to the top floor where there is an observation deck.
Osaka castle has been restored over the years hence it has a more modern feel. A few years ago I went to Himeji Castle (blog post here) and it retained the original interior which made for a more interesting historical tour.
At the top of Osaka castle we had a nice view of the surrounding city. It also gives you an idea of how the old warlords view the area.
On the way out of the castle, we visited the gift shop. There were a number of interesting gifts and a gashapon (capsule toy) machine with cool souvenirs.
We walked over to Miraiza, which is next to Osaka Castle. There was a cafe and we ordered the famous okonomiyaki for lunch.
Apart from the cafe, there was a really cool Shinobi (ninja) gift shop at Miraiza. Samurai and ninja fans can really go crazy buying all the souvenirs here!
From Osaka Castle area, we took the train to Dotonbori.
We exited at the Namba station near the covered street mall. We passed by a really tasty looking takoyaki stall and couldn’t resist a snack. It was really good!
The weather was really cold today. Upon checking the temperature on Google, it “feels like zero degrees”!
We went to Don Qui Jote which was located just across the river from the Running Man icon. It was my first time of hearing about Don Qui Jote. It is a massive discount store that sells possibly anything that you can think of.
We took our time to explore the many floors in Don Qui Jote (refer to the floor directory photo above). The kids had lots of fun looking at the cool gadgets on display.
Later in the evening, the rest of the group headed back to our apartment. I went for a quick dinner with Sofia at a restaurant in San Ban Gai. It was one of the restaurants at the underground pathway connecting the station to the mall.
Related posts: Osaka 2023 part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
Imran Jaafar 