Travel Blog: Japan Trip 2013 Day 6 - Osaka, 日本之旅第六天

日本之旅第六天：6月7日2013年, 星期五 - 大阪
Japan Trip Day 6: 7 June 2013, Friday - Osaka
日本の旅行第六日：６月７日２０１３年（金曜日） - 大阪

What a sight waking up to the beautiful Lake Ashi right before our eyes! Must be one of the best mornings of our lives lol. We went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Breakfast was not included when we booked the hotel room and we decided to try out the buffet breakfast at 2310 yen (S$29) each. They had quite a good variety of food available. There was also an egg station where a chef cooked up a style of egg of your choice.

Would be so romantic to hold a wedding reception here.

Our room key.

Cereals for the health conscious.

Not so healthy food here.

Choose between A or B, and 1 or 2 eggs.

There's Japanese curry too. Best mixed with Japanese rice.

Double Cheese Omelet with 2 eggs, plus some pastries.

Time to tuck in!

We spent about an hour at breakfast, enjoying the scrumptious dishes that the restaurant had to offer. And when we were done, we saw a drastic change in the scenery outside. We could no longer see Lake Ashi and it was foggy and raining. Visibility was probably reduced to just 200m. There was not much we could do under such weather conditions, but we ventured to the vicinity of the hotel, exploring the area. There was a post office just across the road and we went in to check out what they had.

There were quite a number of interesting things available for purchase. There were stamps and letters featuring Doraemon. Nut bought some stamps as souvenir.

Not so romantic anymore.

A post office just across the road from Hakone Hotel.

Plenty of merchandise to empty our pockets.

More over at the counters.

We then ventured to the right side of Hakone Hotel, where a single-storey building housed a souvenir shop. There were many tour buses parking right outside this souvenir shop. Probably a stopover for all tourist buses. There were many souvenirs for sale, including Evangelion items. Hakone was used as one of the places in the Evangelion anime series and therefore you could find souvenirs with Evangelion designs in most souvenir shops in Hakone. We bought quite a few food souvenirs as they looked irresistible.

Tourist souvenir shop.

Plenty of goodies to bring back as souvenirs.

Evangelion souvenirs!

Time to say goodbye!

One last look at Lake Ashi, this time with all the fog giving it a mysterious look.

We checked out of Hakone Hotel and waited for the shuttle bus to bring us all the way back to Odawara Station. We quickly approached the counter staff to purchase our Shinkansen tickets to Osaka at a whopping price of 11,760 yen (S$149), which consists of a base fare of 7,350 yen and a 4,410 yen fee for an unreserved seat. We could have opted for a reserved seat or a green seat, which would cost much more, but there was really no need to pay extra for such seats. This page here explains the difference between the different types of seats. Next, we stocked up on food and drinks at the stores in the train station for our two-hour plus journey to Osaka. We got ourselves some bento as our lunch and some peach drink. I also got a strawberry smoothie for myself. Mmmm mmm...

The statue of the samurai and his horse over at the carpark right outside Odawara Station.

We will get our Shinkansen tickets to Osaka from here.

Our Shinkansen ticket. Even comes with a nice ticket sleeve.

Got some snacks and drinks from the convenience store at the station before we set off.

Not forgetting some bento as our lunch while traveling on the Shinkansen.

Can't wait to dig into this.

We found ourselves some seats but were all separated from each other since we got unreserved seats. Dear and Nut then had their first experience having bento while traveling on a Shinkansen. Halfway throughout the trip, we had a stopover at Nagoya, I believe. I wanted to switch over to the fastest Shinkansen, the Nozomi, as we were on the Hikari. It would definitely be another experience to be able to tell everyone that we had traveled on the fastest Shinkansen in Japan. Therefore, soon enough, the Nozomi arrived and we hopped on to continue our journey to Osaka.

Momo enjoys her first Shinkansen bento.

We made a switch to the fastest Shinkansen in all of Japan, the 700 Series Nozomi.

We reached Shin-Osaka Station at 2:46pm local time. There we bought tickets to bring us to Namba Station (Osakananba Station). When we alighted, we had a hard time navigating around the station. The underground station was so huge that to walk from one end to another probably took about 10 minutes. Moreover, there was a lot of construction going on, with paths blocked off and therefore we had to follow the temporary signs to navigate around the crowds. It would really be quite daunting for a foreigner looking for directions in such a maze-like underground station. We approached the station master office to ask for directions and eventually arrived at our hotel, Swissotel Nankai Osaka. It was actually connected to the underground passageways to the station, and just next to the entrance of Osaka Takashimaya shopping mall.

After the lengthy and tiring journey, we finally checked into our most expensive room for the whole trip. At first it felt like it was definitely was not worth the money. But after the trip, I began to realize that it was all worth it because it was so conveniently connected to the local train station, as well as the station to board the airport express. Can you imagine having to bring along so much luggage under the hot sun or under a storm just to get to the train station? We could accomplish all of these just via the underground passageways. Moreover, Swissotel Nankai Osaka was situated right in the middle of busy Namba area, with all the high-end shopping brands just right at our doorstep. Definitely worth every cent we paid.

Nice ambience.

The room was quite big but the bedsheets looked so crumpled lol.

All necessities available for our use.

The view from our hotel room.

We rested until 5pm, and then made our way back to the train station, where we bought tickets and traveled to Tanimachi Yonchome Station. There we walked towards Osaka Castle. Along the way, we saw some tall buildings, namely the Osaka Prefectural Police building, and the Osaka Museum of History. There was a huge patch of flowers right outside the police building, so Dear and Nut wanted a picture with it. As we continued along the path to Osaka Castle Park, the paths were painted with beautiful flowers of all colours. It was a really beautiful sight.

The flowers are so pretty that they can't resist taking photos with it.

Osaka Prefectural Police Building

Flowers of all shapes and colours provided a wonderful visual experience.

As we walked along the paths towards to the centre of the park, where the Osaka Castle was situated, we witnessed many other buildings, a time capsule monument, an ice-cream truck, a museum, amongst many others. We got ourselves a different flavour of ice-cream each, before taking pictures of the magnificent Osaka Castle. The gold colours of the castle glistened in the setting sun and gave it a really majestic look.

A long way to go before reaching Osaka Castle.

Wonder how old these castle walls are.

Time to wash your hands clean.

Some English-looking castle-like building which is actually a museum.

Nothing like some delicious ice-cream to complement our very eventful trip so far.

A time capsule monument. This is actually the tip of the iceberg, literally.
A huge capsule is buried underneath. Check out http://panasonic.net/history/timecapsule/

Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle and us.

Osaka Castle again.

Gokurakubashi Bridge and Osaka Castle in the background.

Strange bird resting underneath the bridge.

A local bringing his huge dog for a walk in Osaka Castle Park.

Along with several other dogs belonging to him and his wife.

Osaka Castle from a distance.

We made our way to the nearest JR station, Osakajokitazume Station, after a long way. There we returned to our Namba Station and went to the Life Supermarket to do some groceries shopping. We bought plenty of snacks and desserts. Some for bringing back to Singapore and some for our own consumption for the night and the next day. I simply love the variety of food available at these Japanese supermarkets. The ice-creams and desserts were so irresistible that I had to buy some to try out. So were the cookies and other snacks. We even bought chicken instant noodles as we had craving for it after visiting the instant noodles museum. The total bill for our groceries shopping amount to more than 7,000 yen! That's almost S$30 per pax lol. Crazy tourists.

Melons that cost a bomb.

We look more like locals doing their weekly groceries shopping.

We went back to our hotel room to drop our stuff before heading out again to look for dinner. We walked along the streets donned with neon lights and izakayas lined on both sides. Somehow we ended up back in the underground passageways of Namba Station and decided to feast on shabu-shabu. We were one of the last few customers for the day as it was approaching closing time. We had plenty of meat and veggies for a set meal. Somehow it tasted quite bland. Maybe the Singaporean taste bud is more particular than that of Japanese and wants something more spicy or salty. Not quite satisfactory for us but a good meal nonetheless.

Walking along the streets with neon signs and izakayas.

Time for some shabu-shabu!

Hungry and tired after a long day of traveling and walking. This sure replenished all our lost energy.

Situated along one of the Osaka Namba Station underground passageways.

An English menu is available upon request.

We then visited some of the interesting buildings in the Namba area. There was the Namba Hips, where we visited one of the pachinko parlours. Then we walked along some of the popular tourist spots like Dotonbori, where we took pictures with the iconic Glico running man in the background. Basically we were just sightseeing and walking along the streets filled with colours, lights and plenty of tourists.

Namba Hips

Dotonbori

The famous Dotonbori area featuring the Glico running man.

You'll be silly not to take a picture at this iconic spot.

Another popular shopping street - Shin Sai Bashi-Suji.

Almost every signboard features some huge characters.

Look at this gigantic plate of gyozas.

Fancy some indoor fishing?

Yet another popular shopping street - Sennichimae.

And that wrapped up Day 6 of our Japan Trip 2013. It would take probably more than a week to explore Osaka but we did not plan for such an itinerary this time round. Till next time!