Probably the two places I was most looking forward to on my travels was Korea and Japan.  With the first one done, I think saying that i was excited for Japan is a bit of an understatement.  I decided to start in Osaka since my friend Alessia was going to be joining me from Shanghai and Osaka worked out to be the easiest for us to get to.  I arrived in the late afternoon and Alessia was arriving a few hours later so I opted to check out the sites nearby the train station.

As is typical when I get to a new country, I could not get the smile off of my face.  The people, lights, and general atmosphere of the city was amazing.  I was a bit hungry so grabbed some street takoyaki (squid balls) which was one of the things everyone told me to get.  This was also my first interaction with the vending machine/machine culture of Japan.   The menu is arranged on a machine with buttons to select what you want.  You put the money in the machine and it prints you off a receipt to give to the guy preparing the food.  It makes sense so that the person preparing the food doesn’t have to deal with money and there is no tipping culture there so it works.

As I waited for Alessia, I did what I always do when i arrive in a new country.  Go to the grocery store and see what beers are available, that I have never seen before.  In the case of Japan thee were ALOT.

I picked up a few and headed to the train station to pick up Alessia.  I had a beer ready for her when she got off the train.

We opted to grab an Air BnB for the first two nights so we headed there to drop off our bags and then did a bit of wandering through the streets of Osaka.  There is so much to be said about Japan between their advertising, love of vending machines and all things arcades (claw games and bubble vending machines were everywhere.)  After a bunch of wandering, we headed back to the apartment and got in some sleep.

The next morning we decided to go for a walk through a market and head towards a fish market and sushi place that had come recommended to us by a friend, Endo Sushi.  Along the way Alessia got her first taste of Takoyaki as well.

Alessia was in charge of directions and we did make a few interesting detours on our way to the sushi place, but made it eventually.  When we arrived it wasn’t 100% clear where it was but eventually we just found the place with the line outside.  We waited in line for about 45 minutes but eventually got a seat.  The place only had enough space for like 15 people or so.

They had a set menu of a few different sushi options so we selected two and went to town.  It wasn’t too expensive but I think these were just under $20 per plate.

After the sushi experience we headed on foot up to Osaka Castle which was situated on a beautiful grounds in the northern part of the city.  When we arrived on the grounds and saw how nice the park was, we decided to have a quick break for a beer and hang out in the park for a little break!

Osaka castle was very nice, but was relatively new as it was destroyed several times.  The most recent refurbishment was in 1997.

After exploring the castle and grounds, it was time to eat again and even though we had just had sushi, one can never have too much sushi when in Japan, so we headed to a conveyor belt sushi place which boasted $1 plates!!  In general the quality was decent and we managed to eat like kings and queens for very cheap.  The general premise was that there was a continuous stream of sushi passing you on the conveyor belt and you could take whatever you wanted, however there was also a touchscreen where you could order what you wanted and it would be delivered on the conveyor belt on a red plate.  The screen would flash telling you that this is what you had ordered and so you took your order off the conveyor belt.

I even got to experience a self pouring beer machine where the machine would tilt the glass while pouring a beer and then at the very end squirt a but of foam into the head.  This seemed to be very common in Japan but obliviously not really a thing in Canada.

After stuffing our faces with sushi, we decided to check out another thing on my random list of “what to do in Osaka”.  IT’s called the Omeda sky building and it is a really cool building with very interesting architecture.  The  Osaka skyline dosen’t have many tall buildings so this is a an anomaly.  Take a look at the photos to see the architecture but one of the cool things is the escalators that seem to traverse the air.

The best part was that the escalators were free to go up to and it was just the final observation deck that costs money and Alessia and I both agreed that it was not worth paying to go an extra floor up.

Once we descended the sky building we headed back towards the entertainment district and wandered the streets to see what we could discover.  Since it was Japan we discovered quit a lot.  The first thing is that the Japanese love the bubble vending machine concept.  Alessia and I each got a cute hat for our friends cats.

The other thing you must know about Japan is that they love arcades.  I also love arcades, so it is a match made in heaven.  We walked through the part of Osaka that was famous for their anime and we were not disappointed.  There were a lot of shops selling figurines, manga comics and anything else you could imagine.

we also went to a japanese couples photo booth which are EVERYWHERE.  It was both incredibly fun and super strange.  Word of wisdom when using these, don’t wear a green shirt, it kind of messes things up a bit.

We wandered back towards the main entertainment area and stumbled across a stand up bar that looked like it was happening and so we decided to stop for a drink.  It was down a small alleyway and it was packed.  There was one guy in their that spoke pretty good english and he helped us order and told us how things worked.  They had a dice game there that allowed you to roll a pair of dice and if the dice showed Odd you paid double, Even you paid half and if you got doubles it was free.  Alessia rolled and got an even which means she paid half and I rolled and got an odd, so had to pay double.  The bar was super fun and was honestly one of the better bar experiences i had in all of Japan.  Did I mention it was also cheap!!!!

After some beers and high balls it was time to eat again and we were both craving our first dose of Ramen.  We ended up at Kamukura Ramen which also had the vending machine ordering system.  We had to get help from one of the staff, but ended up figuring it out.

We finished off the jam packed day by walking along the river towards our Air BnB!

We only had the AirBnB for two nights so we decided to head to Kyoto to see what that famed city had to offer!  I will cover this Kyoto side trip in a separate post although we did come back to Osaka so I will just continue that part of the journey.  Will post Kyoto next.

We left Kyoto in the early afternoon and headed back to Osaka where we checked into a hostel and went off exploring again.  The one thing that really caught my eye in Osaka was the silver ball planet.  We decided to head in that direction which took us by some of the shopping streets and allowed us to see dotunbury during the day.

We eventually made it to Silver Ball planet and I was in HEAVEN!  There were so many pinball machines and they were all in great working order.

We spent a few hours there and I played several games i had never played before.  I also managed to break a few but the operator was very helpful and was there to fix any problems we had.  I really enjoyed it there and should be a stop on anyone’s Osaka trip even if they only kind of like Pinball because you’ve hung out with me at some point.

By the time we were finished with Pinball, it had transitioned to evening and so we headed back into the entertainment district to see what trouble we could get into.  As we were walking down the strip, I noticed a small sign for the Dotunbury Brewery and me being me, we had to go check it out.  It turned out to be a pretty high end restaurant and the beer was only so-so, but I can add it to my list of breweries and the beer was beer.

As we were sitting at the brewery we both decided that we wanted to go back to the standing bar we had gone to a few nights before.  When we arrived, there was a different guy who spoke english and calling him a character was an understatement.  He had a hilarious taupe and was hitting on all of the japanese girls in the place.  He was SUPER friendly though and chatted with us for a while.  He actually used to manage the Bill Graham civic auditorium for a few years in San Francisco.

I wanted to get my revenge on the dice game, so I opted to play again and once again rolled an Odd.  So i decided that I must win and tried one more time.  ODD AGAIN.  I ended up paying double for all of my drinks at that bar which placed them in line with the rest of the places around, so i guess that’s ok.  We asked our friend where we should go next and he told us that the owners of this bar have another bar very nearby, but down a secretish alleyeway and that he would show us where it was.  We followed him literally 10 steps down the street and into this alleyway across the way.  We ducked out heads into this small bar that was very similar to the other one with equally cheap beer.  When we arrived, who did we see? but the English speaking guy from the first night.  We met a few locals and had a fantastic time meeting and discussing Japan and Canada.

We stayed at the second bar for the rest o the night and eventually called it a night!

Unfortunately, that ended Alessia’s visit in Japan as she had to jump on a flight back to Shanghai and I had to move on to the next stop on my Journey.  Having Alessia join me even for just a few days, was amazing and we had such a good time.  We had both never been to Japan before, so it was a new experience for both of us.  I wish more of my friends would work with me to try and meet up because wherever I am always seems so much more special when I have a friend travelling with me.  Since then I have mostly been solo but have big plans for Europe!

Osaka was amazing and was a great introduction to Japan.  Next up, Part 2 of Alessia’s travels in Japan! Kyoto!