Hitting The Wall In Osaka

Osaka is a 24 hour city - at least where we are staying.

The noise of people out for the night didn’t stop until nearly 5:30am when the sun came up. And then it started again at 8am for some reason. We were all so tired we slept through most of it.

Kristine thinks we are maybe 20 years too old for this part of town. And then helpfully added that I’m maybe 25 years too old.

Started the day with breakfast in the Airbnb with food from the local Foodmart and then walked through shopping malls near Dontonburi. Stopped off at the Pokémon centre and then a train to the Umeda Sky Tower. Went up and enjoyed the view - Osaka is stunning.

Walked through the park and had lunch in a high end shopping mall. Paid more than we had for any meal on this trip - and then the servings were half the size of any meal so far on this trip.

Caught the train to Tenjinbashi-Suji (2.6 km long shopping mall) which was impressive but I didn’t really have an interest in anything there - it’s all food, pokies and junk.

We did a small detour there at one point and visited the Osaka Temmangu Shrine - which is over 1000 years old. Not bad for an old building, the roof looks better than our old house.

We sat down at this point and the kids were done - they had hit the wall and wanted to go home……to Adelaide I think!

Convinced them to make one more hike (train ride) to Osaka Castle.

We grabbed a snack in the park of the castle to refuel, then a hike up the hill to Osaka Castle itself.

At this point Ben was 100% done so we sprung for the park bus to the bottom and then a taxi back to the local Don Quixote for some retail therapy. They suddenly found their legs again and we lost 45 minutes shopping for gifts.

Back to the Airbnb for a rest and then Krissi and I headed out for dinner in the local area.

Started with dinner in a Japanese bar where you order on a tablet. While we were eating we could hear (and feel the vibration of the bass and drums) some rock music and turned out there was a metal / punk club above us.

Went upstairs and it looked amazing - maybe 20 people moshing in a tiny room to a female punk rock band. But the cover charge was $100 for the two of us and we (Krissi mostly…) weren’t sold - so off we went.

Next stop was a cute record bar and a few beers. The place was called Phoe-be which was a self described folk pop bar. Chatted with a fellow tourist about how wonderful Japan has been, then home to bed.Leggi altro