Osaka 大阪, Japan Trip (Day 6)

9th March 2017, Thursday

It's time to check out from Kyoto and head down to Osaka today. So we packed our luggage and headed down to the train station. As it was early, we got McD for our breakfast to eat on the train.
When the train arrived, we all boarded and got onto our seat. It was a 10 mins ride to Kyoto and my friends did not managed to finish their breakfast....hahahaa....Then we headed to the metro and traveled down to the hotel. We reached there about 10 plus in the morning. I was surprised the hotel was just opposite the street of Dotonbori and we could see the famous giant crab restaurant from our hotel room.

As it was still early for us to check into our room, we left our luggage and decided to head down to the Osaka Castle. We walked to the metro station and reached the castle around 11 plus. We also had to walk a long way to the castle door. Along the walk, we bought a corn and a bbq cuttlefish. The stall owner asked us where we came from, it was kind of funny as the 3 of us came from different countries. The stall owner also tried to speak to me in Mandarin. Then we continued walking to the castle main gate. There were food stalls on the castle ground and my friend bought a giant crab stick for 700 yen. It was damn nice!!

Giant Snow Crab Sticks..Yummy!

After eating, we went to buy the entrance tickets and headed up into the castle. It was super crowded inside, and we just walked each floor by floor to see the exhibits. After spending some time, we headed back down to level 1. We were playing with the coin engraving machine, it was not cheap though. There were other people being curious on what we were doing while we were using the machine and started to get for them too. After that, we went to walk through the cherry blossom garden outside the castle. There were some trees with sakura flowers and they were beautiful.

After the castle tour, we headed down to shinsaibashi streets and we had ramen in a small ramen shop. After lunch, i brought them to Pablo shop and there was a queue as usual. We decided to get one before going back to the hotel. Then we went shopping in the Disney store, followed that i went on to shop for a new pair of shoes in onitsuka tiger shop. Manged to buy a pair which i like, and it costed around $80 plus after tax refund. (I wearing it everyday to work....hehehee). After that, one of my friends informed that they will head back to the hotel first, so we got a cake from Pablo and they went back. I continued to walk around the streets on my own till late afternoon when i realised i had reached the hotel. So i headed back to the room and it was a tatami style room. There were tea set and snacks provided for us too.

Then i rested while trying to persuade my friends to go for crabs as dinner. Eventually managed to get them to leave the hotel room for crabs dinner. We headed to the one opposite the street, one of Kani Doraku's branches. We had to wait until 7.30 pm and so we walked around the streets to pass time first. It was slightly cold, i got my friends to try the giant scallop i bought in my previous trip. It was still sweet and big but the price had increased. After walking for some time, we went back for our main dinner.

We were seated on the 3rd floor and we ordered two crab sets to share. There were a group of china tourists sitting in front of us and i noticed that one of the staffs was able to speak to them in Mandarin. There was a slight different in the experience, as compared as i had in their main branch.When it was time to cook the porridge, the staff did not let us taste whether the soup was too salty. Instead she tried it herself and continued cooking. Anyway, it was not that salty and still quite nice. We were so full after the meal. My friends were fighting for the fruits too...hahaa...The peach was quite sweet and nice...Too bad my friend didn't get to taste after the other one dropped it.hehehe...

After the delicious dinner, we headed back to the hotel to have our Pablo cake...sooo full!!
Then we all showered and get ready for bed. That's the end of our day.

Hotel Stayed:
Yamatoya Honten

Osaka 大阪, Japan Trip (Day 9)

4th January 2015, Sunday

Kyoto Ramen Street

Gyoza

Fried Rice again!!

Today, we had to leave the nice hotel and take the train to Osaka. So we got ourselves prepared and packed our luggage and checked out of the hotel. We took the train back to Kyoto station and reserved the 12 pm plus train to Osaka. As there were still time for lunch. we wanted to pack lunch from the 1st ramen restaurant we ate on the first day we arrived in Kyoto there. So my friend waited at a corner while i ran up to the restaurant to buy the food. But the restaurant don't provide takeaways, so we had to eat in the restaurant. Then i went back to my friend and we went together back up to the restaurant to have our lunch...our last meal in Kyoto..really like the food there. Anyway, we missed our train while having lunch there..hohoho...After lunch, we went back to the JR office and reserved the next train to Osaka. Once it was done, we made our way slowly to the train platform. Suddenly, i noticed someone very big sized standing beside me and was wearing the traditional clothes for Japanese guys. But he looked like a sumo wrestler to me...hahahaa...

Hotel Bed

Breakfast Coupons

We boarded the train as the train arrived, it was a 15 mins ride to Osaka. We reached Shin-Osaka station at about 1.00 pm where we had to change to the metro to get to our hotel. We took the metro station until Anwa station and were walking around the station 1 big round just to find exit 1 in the pink line. And we had to carry all our stuffs up the stairs to the street level. Luckily the hotel was just located across the road, and we went to check but the staff told us the room was not ready for us yet. So we sat at the lobby to wait for the room to be ready. Luckily we just had to wait for about 10 mins and our room was ready. We were also given the breakfast vouchers (this is the only hotel that included breakfast). And we went up to our room, the room was small as usual and with 2 twin beds. And the toilet was also small and there was sound coming from the toilet ground...sounds like the floor going to break anytime. The bathtub was also small and the curtains was not cleaned, there were some dirty patches on it. There was no wifi in the room too...haiz...Anyway, we rested in the room for some time until 3 or 4 plus before we left the hotel and went to Osaka Aquarium.

Sea Otter

Sting Ray

Spider Crab

Light Illustration Outside the Aquarium Entrance

It was a straight train to Osakako station from our hotel and there were signs for us to follow when we alighted from the station to walk to the aquarium. There was a very big Ferris wheel in front of it and it was near the harbour. And i saw there was a sign that directs to take a ship to Universal Studio Japan, which was very interesting. Then i went to get the entrance tickets from the counter and we went in to explore the aquarium. The starting point was from the 8th level, Japan Forest and slowly go down each level to view the fishes. There were river otters, which were very playful and sea otter, which was bathing itself when we saw her. Then there were sea lions and seals, some playing and some sleeping. Dolphins were swimming in a very fast speed (i was not able to capture the action with my camera), and performing for us to see. Cute penguins resting and the lights even turned off when we reached there, it was their sleeping time. There was a super giant fish in the Pacific Ocean place, swimming with other fishes, like the sting rays, hammerhead shark, etc. There were many types of fishes in the big aquarium to see and study, spider crabs and jellyfishes were there too. By the time we finished walking in the aquarium, it was already past 7 pm.

Yummy Omu Rice

Rice with Chicken and Egg

We left the aquarium and saw a street performer performing some street magic tricks to entertain the kids. We stood there and watched abit and then we went inside the nearby mall to have our dinner. There was a level where all the restaurants were located. So i chose a place that was selling omu rice and we had 2 plate of omu rice. The rice was nice to eat, after the dinner, we went back to our hotel to rest.

Hotel Stayed:
Humor Resort New Oriental Hotel

Kyoto 京都, Japan Trip (Day 6)

1st January 2015, Thursday

Lucky bags from BIC Camera

Yawn....Happy New Year, Everyone!! It's the first day of 2015 and today we need to travel down to Kyoto, our next destination. Woke up at 8 am and we just missed our reserved train to Kyoto, so we just took our time and packed our luggage and then checked out from the hotel. Then we made our way to Tokyo station. But on the transfer station, we went to BIC Camera checking out their lucky bags...hehehee...It was camera and video-cam bags, and the items were random, depending on your luck. We got 1 camera bag for $30,000 plus yen and we got a Nikon D3320 DSLR camera. We also bought a lucky bag from Adidas, which consisted of a jacket, a track pants, a scarf, a polo shirt and some more. Then we went upstairs to look for NDS console set as it was cheaper there. My friend went down to buy another camera lucky bag as we were thinking of selling the camera sets when we were back in Singapore.Anyway, we got ourselves stuck there shopping for hours before we left to the train station...hohohoho.....

Once we reached Tokyo station, we went to the JR office to make seats reservation for our next train to Kyoto, which was at 2.33 pm. Then i bought a unagi bento to eat on the train, $2310 yen..not very cheap. Then we boarded the train with all our stuffs...so many bags to carry. I just ate the bento as the train moved, we passed by Nagoya too, some towns we passed were snowing heavily and some towns we passed were having bright sunlight with no snow. We also passed by Mount Fuji, it was having snow on top of the volcano. We reached Kyoto station around 5 plus, and it was snowing in the train station (as it was open ceiling). And we went to check out the streets, there were snow everywhere and ice too. So we decided to go check in to hotel first before going for dinner, then we transferred to another JR line to go to Otsu station (2 stations away from Kyoto). It was really cold and the wind was blowing very strong. There were many posters on snow crabs, made you feel like going to eat. We were really jumping in the cold, luckily the hotel lift is connected to the JR station. But when we were going to exit from the station, there was no staffs there to show them our JR passes. We were so puzzled and my friend went to the other side to ask the staffs in the office. I got hear my friend's voice over the speakers too..hehehe...Then she came back and pressed onto the intercom machine there. We thought we can just pass through the gate, but when i tried to pass through, the gate door blocked me. Then my friend pressed on the intercom machine at the side and told the stuff that we had our JR passes and showed our passes over the camera. Then we took the lift up to level 2 to the hotel lobby.

Hotel Bed

Tracks covered with snow

Kyoto Tower

Then we checked in to our hotel and the staffs can't speak much English well but we still can understand them. The room was much bigger here and the toilet and bathtub was also much nicer. And we got a nice view outside the room, all covered with snow...heheee....Then i went to the toilet and accidentally locked the toilet door from outside. Hahaha...the toilet can't be opened now...so we called to get the staff the door. A young lady came up to our room and then she tried to open the door and was also puzzled why the door got locked. Then she suddenly ran off after telling us that she will be back later. Later another guy staff (who helped us to do our check in) came and helped us unlock the door. Then he also told us how to lock and unlock the door, after the drama, we rested for a while before heading back to Kyoto station for dinner. Before going to take the train, we went to the reception to ask for the breakfast meal for tomorrow and we also enquired on the places to eat during the next few days as it was new year period. The staff took us all the places are closed the next few days. So we booked breakfast meals for tomorrow, my friend asked the staff whether there was warm food in the breakfast buffet. The staff doesn't get it, so my friend asked her whether there was noodle, rice or eggs. She managed to tell us that there was eggs included, cos she can't speak English well but we can see her trying very hard to communicate with her. Somehow we did find her very cute....hahaa...Anyway she kept saying sorry to us when we left the hotel for dinner. We took the JR train back to Kyoto station and it was still very cold outside. So we tried to find food in the station, the station was quite big and there were a lot of restaurants. We went up 10th level in Istean, this level was a ramen street. There were a lot of ramen restaurants in the level. So we walked 1 round to see which ramen restaurant to try.

Fried Rice...Must Try!!

Ramen

Fish Cutlet

We went to a ramen restaurant and bought the items using the vouchers machine. Then we queued for table. We ordered a ramen with pork, a fried rice and a fish cutlet. When we sat down, we noticed there was a basket of raw eggs on the table. Then my friend was saying the raw egg to beat in the ramen and i also saw other people beat the raw egg into their ramen. The fried rice was super nice and i also liked the fish cutlet. The ramen soup was abit thick but the bacon was very tender. My friend even smuggled 2 eggs back to the hotel...hohoho...After the nice dinner, we went back to the hotel. We exited on the other side to take a walk around the surroundings. There were some workers pushing the snow away from the walkways in front of the station. Then we started to play with the snow and even made a small snowman. We also saw a small blue car with a block of snow on top of the car...hohohoho....After that, we went back to the hotel and my friend went and asked for coffee. After that, i went and 'onsen' inside the bathroom...lol...the hot water was very shiok, after that i felt super hot and looked red after the bath...hohoho...Had to open the window to let the cold wind in to cool down. The snow was also snowing heavily and the wind was still blowing strong. Worry about tomorrow that we cannot go out due to heavy snow.

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Tetora Otsu