Osaka, Japan 3-day Weekend Trip

I had a three-day weekend for the autumnal equinox. We decided it would be the perfect time to take an overnight trip somewhere in Japan. We went to Osaka, Japan. From Himeji Station we took a train to Osaka Station. It was about an hour-long ride and cost ¥1,520 (~$14) one-way.

Day 1

Our first stop after arriving was visiting Osaka Pokémon Center. It is a new Pokémon Center that was opened this year and is right above the station on the 13th floor. We thought it would be easy to find but it actually took us a while. We could not find an elevator for the 13th floor and somehow ended up going to the north building instead of the south building. We went back to where we first started and found an elevator that took us to the Pokémon Center. It was smaller than I expected but it was also crowded with families and children shopping there. Once we left the station, we headed to Tower Records with was just a few minutes away. Tower Records is from California but filed for bankruptcy in the US about a decade ago.

  

We took the Osaka Metro to see the Glico sign which is in Dotonbori. The original sign was installed in 1935, there is an image of a giant athlete running on a track with the symbol of Glico candy. It's a very popular spot to take a picture. Many people were posing similarly to the athlete. 

A Japanese dish that we wanted to try in Osaka was kushikatsu. Kushikatsu is meat or vegetables that are skewered and have been deep fried. The restaurant we ate at was called Sakura and it was near Dotonbori. All the food we had there was delicious!
 
  

Day 2

On our second day, we took the Osaka Metro to Osaka castle. There is a metro station that stops right in front of Osaka castle. After exploring the castle, we went back to Dontonbori and ate Okonomiyakia for lunch. Okonomiyaki is sometimes described as a Japanese pancake. It is not like a sweet pancake you would normally picture made of flour. How it is made can vary by location, but it is a pan-fried dish that has batter, cabbage and various ingredients like mayo, seafood, meat, cheese, and bonito flakes. Once we finished lunch, we had the rest of the day to explore the area we were in. I wanted to ride the Don Quixote Ferris wheel in Dontonbori. There was still daylight outside when we got on but I imagine riding it at night when the streets a lit up would be a nice view to see. A few minutes walking from Dotonbori is Amerika-mura (America town). There we saw a group of people in costume playing real life Mario Kart on the streets. We didn't do this, but if you visit Japan and are a Mario Kart fan this might be something you can check out and do! I tried to get a picture but was only able to capture the back end of them speeding away.

  

Okonomiyaki lunch

                   

 

Day 3

On our final day in Osaka we just had one thing planned to do before heading back home to Himeji. We took the Osaka metro to get to Osaka Aquarium. We thought the aquarium would not be busy as it was a weekday but we were wrong. The aquarium was popular. There were families and students on a school field trip visiting. We were able to do quite a few things during our visit but there were plenty of other things we didn't get to do. Osaka is a great place to visit and located not too far from Himeji; we hope to go back again sometime.