Osaka. Day 1.
I’m blogging! How rare is that?! Okays, so anyway… I’d just came back from a trip to Japan! The land of awesome food. This time, I made it to Osaka, Kyoto & Kobe with Arielle.
This is awkward ‘cos I haven’t blogged in a long while… and I hope my memory doesn’t fail me. So this time, the trip was kinda in the middle of nowhere. Such a bummer ‘cos an aunt of mine had passed away the day before my flight - RIP. :( And then I got this really bad cough and was mostly short of breath throughout my trip. By the way, I haven’t recovered.
Right, so on to my first day… It was on an early Tuesday morning, our flight was 1.25am? Yeah, and I was extremely panicky at 12.45am ‘cos dear Arielle hadn’t arrived - haha drama even before our flight! Almost thought that we were going to miss our flight to Osaka. But it was alright in the end, the guy at the check in counter effectively managed to get both Arielle’s baggage and us on board the plane. Phew!
A few hours later… and we’ve arrived in Osaka to an awesomely chilly 17deg with light drizzle! I love the chilly weather… it’s perfect. Singapore’s too hot. I dislike being all sticky and icky.
Kansai Airport in Osaka.
Then we arrived at Rinku Premium Outlets~ which was pretty much deserted in the morning.
Very peaceful place - but it’s evil! Shopaholics should stay away from this place.
We had breakfast there - it was at this place called “Bagel & Bagel”. So pretty and the staff were so friendly! Anyway, Japanese are pretty good with their service standards. There are the quintessential bows and whatnots. Unlike Singapore - gosh, our service standards are horrendous! So, back to the bagels - I had this yummy cinnamon & honey cream cheese bagel - which was oh so delicious! It came as a set with a drink, and I chose Honey Milk - it was so good! I loved the honey milk. *Wonders how to do it - I should try making it one day. It’s so so so delicious.
After a long, perilous ride on the rail with our heavy luggages and carrying it up and down stairs and streets… we finally checked in at Hotel Villa Fontaine Shinsaibashi… and started exploring the streets of Shinsaibashi + Dotonbori! :D Super hungry!
The only reason why I was carrying an umbrella in this shot was … the light drizzle! (Lookin’ so auntie :p) Haha, got acquainted with that huge crab there (just kidding). So when you’re in Osaka, you’re bound to see this little drummer. I have yet to find out the story behind this bugger - but I will! Uniqlo even has a t-shirt of this guy!
This is what the streets look like, by the way - countless bicycles zipping by us, gals, guys, wearing all their pretty stuff, in heels - carrying an umbrella! They can ride with all that junk in their trunk, that’s a fact.
Spent some time orientating ourselves on the streets of Shinsaibashi, we walked up and down a few times! My feet were hurting, was desperately lacking in sleep - and sucking it up - hated getting sick when I’m travelling but some things are inevitable. Especially with my lifestyle, it’s not that difficult to get down with a flu.
Still, gotta try to explore and have fun, aye? So here goes…
Trying out this tempura place in Dotonbori “Ichiban Tempura”.
It was great, but it was a little too gelat - super value for money, we had fish, shrimp, veggie, miso soup and rice. All for about S$15+. The place was really quiet though, because it was around 4+, 5pm -ish went we went in. The guy must be thinking, weird time to come in for … lunner?
After eating and a bit of shopping at Shinsaibashisuji, we went back to the river to take photos - here we see the bright lights of the night lit up the whole area… superbly lively place at night!
Arielle got her camera, and it was way cheap! Less than $700 for an Olympus PEN mini (Dual lens set) and she got a 32gb SD card and free camera bag to boot. My bag broke, by the way - so we went over to Tsutaya to buy one of those magazines which gave a free bag. I got a Agnes B. one, cost me $21! And you’ll see in the next few days I’ll be carrying that bag. It looks super thrashed right now though… sigh, with all the abuse and whatnot I gave it the few days we were in Japan.. What to expect?
After a cup of Green Tea Latte to fill my stomach, it’s time to retire for the night~!!
