Japan 2023- Day Two Osaka

Woke up, picked up some breakfast items at the local konbini (7-11), packed our things into one suitcase for the next three days and took the remaining two to Andy's place before heading to Tokyo Station to catch the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) to Osaka. 

We got there in plenty of time to pick up our reserved tickets from the ticket machine, do a bit of shopping, and get an ekiben for the 300+ miles west. An ekiban is basically a bento box sold at a train station (eki) to eat on a long-distance train. 

While eating and drinking are not allowed on shorter commuter trains, it is allowed on the shinkansen. With so many options, it was hard to choose. But we decided on this one...

The bullet train is a wonderful way to travel what would normally be a 6 to 6 1/2 hour drive in a little less than 3 hours, making only three stops. 

The scenery changes quickly as you speed by at an average of 170mph! And with all of the tunnels and walls and trees, it was hard to catch a good video, but I did take a quick pic at one of the stations...

While the ride was very smooth, it did make me a bit motion sick. Thankfully not so sick that I couldn't enjoy our ekiban...

Making such great time meant we still couldn't check into our hotel when we got to Osaka. Every station has coin lockers for luggage, which meant all we needed to do was buy a couple of pistachio chocolates at the konbini for the necessary 100 yen coins. 

I took this shot so we could remember which station entrance our locker was at

We decided to hit Tenjinbashi-suji, the longest shopping street in Japan. There are tons of little local and chain shops with both new and used items with so many fun things to see. Also lots of little food stalls... 

At about 1.6 miles long, we didn't do all of it! 

this was one of the few non-drink vending machines we saw and it had pizza

I just had to take a picture of this photo studio that took baby pictures at 100 days old called Omiyamairi... 

We took a quick detour down a side street to see this little shrine...

This was also the first time we noticed the beautiful and unique manhole covers that are everywhere...

Just before turning around we grabbed some takoyaki, or octopus balls...

This place had a massive line that we chose to forego but the line was much shorter on our return trip. Turns out it was because they were sold out of most of the korokke (croquettes) but we figured whatever they had left had to still be delicious. We were right. Both the katsu and korokke were super tasty!

Full of food and ready to get checked into our hotel, we went back to the station to retrieve our bags and catch the train to Namba. 

Our hotel in Osaka was actually an apartment building used as a hotel. As a result there was no desk staff and we were emailed an entrance code to use to get into the front door. Either because of poor signage or a translation issue, the code wouldn't work. Thank goodness another family was leaving the building at the same time and let us in. We were able to check in on the iPad in the lobby, get our room door code and learn that we were using the wrong keypad. 

We pretty much immediately fell in love with the room! While still small, it had a little kitchen, dining area, balcony, indoor laundry, separate toilet and shower, and two beds (unfortunately this one was still small, hard, and awful pillows). Thanks to this place, I totally miss Japanese bathrooms!

Not only did our balcony have a nice view but it also had special balcony shoes next to the fire escape ladder

 After settling into our room, we decided it was time to check out the local night life along the canal at Dotonbori and grab something to eat...

Dotonbori is a pretty popular tourist spot and we could see why... So many unique things to see and eat!

this place had Andy's name on the sign :) 

We found a 4 story restaurant famous for okonomiyaki (cabbage pancakes). We waited in the monster long line in the middle of the street for about 20 minutes without moving before we (and the 3 guys behind us) decided to ditch and try somewhere else... 

While the candy coated strawberries on a stick were wonderful they really didn't make a good dinner. So we stopped at this little yakitori (grilled meat on sticks) restaurant. Everything was so delicious we ordered some of them a second time!

We also got rice, mac salad and sake

For dessert we had dango (warm rice dumplings) with sweet soy sauce. Not our favorite but glad we tried them...

Dotonbori is also famous for the neon signs, especially Glico man. This sign was originally installed in 1935 by the Glico Confectionary Company famous for Pocky. 

But our last stop was the giant Don Quijote store Andy had seen on the satellite map before we left the room...

When we got up close we could see why it could be seen from space! This store no only has everything you need in one stop but also has a ferris wheel on top of it! Unfortunately it wasn't operating but it was still a very fun and impressive store!

Then we walked back to the hotel and crashed! :)