James Went To Osaka, Japan

And for the final stretch of my definitely-not-once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan, it was a few days in Osaka. Crazy Osaka.

Osaka is more about the vibes – it’s a bit more gritty, the Hackney or Peckham of Japan though really that comparison is pretty useless – it’s just…Osaka. There’s nothing I can compare it to.

A city of 2.8 million, though if you include the wider metropolitan area of Kyoto and Kobe, as there isn’t a green belt separating them, then 19 million.

You can walk around people-watching all day and night, or just admiring the crazy decorations in areas like Dotonbori, or take a chance with one of the vast amounts of tiny bars. It’s the kind of city that you can just experience – you don’t need to tick things off a to-do list.

What To Do In Osaka

In terms of tourist things to do, well, there’s a castle, with a moat around it – it looks rather grand though we didn’t queue to get in, as Claude advised not to bother.

And you can get a good view of Osaka actually being a work city, and not just a vibe city like we experienced:

Apparently, the shopping is good in Osaka.

There are large areas of vintage clothes shops though they do seem to repeat themselves, and quite how vintage they are is another matter. People queue to get into Uniqlo. The shopping streets are seemingly endless.

T-shirts I didn’t buy:

There was just an insane amount of edgy t-shirts – the likes of which I don’t see in Zara in the UK.

Granted, some of them were expensive – one I did buy was £50 which in Japan is a stonking amount. Remember – food/drink is roughly half the price of London.

Kind of Tiger-ish, and it was meaningful as Hull City had got to the Championship Play-off final.

Yorkshire Yorkshire Yorkshire Yorkshire

Why on earth was I in Japan and not at Wembley? Well, when I booked these flights the year before in July we had only just stayed up on goal difference. So the idea we could finish top half, let alone get to the play-off final was pie in the sky.

Even this season, we won like 1 of the last 11 games of the season – we really tried hard to throw it away. We only got into the play-offs because neither Derby or Wrexham won on the last day of the season, and our winning goal was, erm, let’s just say VAR might not have approved it.

We did actually beat Millwall quite comfortably. Then the best team in the play-offs was Southampton but they got thrown out for cheating.

Damn I had FOMO. I’d been to every Wembley appearance Hull City had had in their lifetime. And where the hell was I going to watch a game starting at midnight in Osaka?

I messaged a few places and eventually (after saying yes, then no, then yes) BASE sports bar said they could show it. Possibly only because we had a Japanese player.

Guess who crossed the ball for the winning goal?

Yay our Japanese player, and at this point we were friends with the bar manager who was celebrating his birthday, and our promotion.

Tequilas all around. It was meant to be.

And one final point from that night – I went to the Family Mart at 3am and there was nobody there. Just me, and a robot going around the store. Spooky. Imagine Tesco Express in Croydon with no staff and just a robot? Empty shelves within an hour.

Shinsekai

We also went to Shinsekai, which was built in 1912 and is like retro-futuristic, and supposed to be modelled on Coney Island.

I just didn’t know what to make of this place.

We didn’t do a lot there other then yet more shopping – the craziness was blurring into one, and I could swear I took 100 photographs but yet I only have a few.

Eating In Osaka

The other thing we did in Osaka was a food tour – perhaps a tad disappointing as it was quite expensive for what it was.

Yet we did get to try the various local delicacies. And more wagyu, of course.

Okonomiyaki is basically pancake mixed with cabbage with a savoury ish maple ish sauce on top. Way too much sauce.

We also had Takoyaki – batter filled with octopus pieces, which I quite enjoyed but gosh they are boiling hot.

Even I was getting bored of deep fried everything by this point:

Probably the highlight of the tour was Uncle Rikuro’s cheesecake – in the basement of a large department store there is this stand where they make, I cannot remember but maybe 12 cheesecakes at a time, and you watch the process – it’s all very Just In Time manufacturing/baking and then sell exceptionally fresh cheesecake to you.

And inside is just sooooooo soft and glorious, curiously wobbly, with the odd raisin surprise.

The only other place we ate at worth mentioning was Dos Avocados – there is only so much Japanese food I can eat (same applied to any cuisine, including British so chill out) and I had absolutely banging enchiladas.

Also got talking to a Japanese woman in there who insisted on telling me that Japan was boring, and she was obsessed with the Tudors (apparently there is a series on Netflix or something, I didn’t realise until after as I thought she was just really interested in British history).

Japan boring? Osaka boring? Gosh.

Also quite amusing that there was an American tourist trying to talk to her and she wasn’t interested. The amount of times locals were like, “oh British, I love James Bond (or other British thing)” was really quite charming.

Beer In Osaka

I actually made it to some of the craft beer places I researched!

So my favourite place was iiie. Alas, heavy metal always playing which got a bit much, but every single beer was very good, if not exceptional.

Alas I’d got so used to the cheapness of Japan – and sure, craft beer is more expensive at around £4-5.00 a beer (going a bit from memory here which is now hazier than some of the beers I had).

But somehow I managed to spend £15.00 on one can.

Of course, after I paid and Monzo flashed up, I checked the prices and out of hundreds of cans, I could find just two more expensive.

The other place we had good beer at was Craft Beer Works Kamikaze, though the choice was more limited and they ran out of ones I like for the second round – on the bright side, they had minimal techno playing.

Oh and there was the cutest wine bar at Wine Kalkos – “I love James Bond, etc etc” which we stumbled across and didn’t even check a review before going in. Yep, damn good wine.

Back To The Vibes

Osaka at night was superb, and a bit like Shinjuku in Tokyo, kind of overwhelming with all the lights, sounds and just wackiness.

My favourite spot was possibly by the canal, it was just wonderful for people-watching by day and especially night, waving to the boats going by.

Plus during the day you were in the glorious sunshine, and could have a beer in the sun – an impossibility in Tokyo.

I’m not sure I’ve got much else to say about Osaka, it really was a me kind of place.

I’m just going to add a splurge of photographs.

Well I’ve got no more places to write about, I guess I should go book something.

Weirdly, though I did look into flights the day after I got back, I have now gone 9-10 weeks without a flight booking confirmation in my inbox.

Japan was that good. I loved it, I’m still not over it. It really was the trip of a lifetime, but I’m sooooo going back there, unless death/health/money/war stops me. But even then, I’ll try to find a way. I think next time I’d try to do either Hokkaido in the far north-east, or Kumamoto in the far-south east, and just one of Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka again – because none of them I came anywhere close to completing. We’ll see.

Japan, I do love you. Arigato gozaimasu.