Osaka is the third largest city in Japan and attracts its fair share of tourists each year. Its located in the Kansai region of Japan and very close to Kyoto. One can easily chose to stay entirely in Kyoto or Osaka while exploring the Kansai region and visit the other city as a day trip. We decided to do that, and since we had more to see in Kyoto, we decided to base ourselves in Kyoto for 6 nights and visit Osaka as a day trip from Kyoto.

Osaka is often called “Japan’s Kitchen” as many of the great Japanese foods originated here and great eateries continue to exist. It is also famous for shopping streets and lively night life. Unless you are a non-vegetarian or in the mood to party in the night and want to stay longer on the streets in the night, you can get away with doing Osaka as a day trip (like us). Another popular reason to stay few nights in Osaka would be to visit Universal Studios which we didn’t do, as our daughter was still very young and we had plans to visit Disneyland in Tokyo.

Getting around in Osaka

You can get to Osaka from Kyoto in about 30 to 40 mins on many of the direct lines from Kyoto central station to Osaka central station. Osaka itself doesn’t have a robust train network compared to what Tokyo does. The JR lines are very sparse and you might have to rely on private lines (subways) spending money on IC cards to get to places faster. Since we had a JR pass (Kansai Hiroshima Area pass) and didn’t want to spend extra money on private lines, we ended up just taking the JR lines within Osaka.

For more information on JR pass, please refer to this post.
For information on Osaka/Kansai’s train networks and IC card, refer to this post.

Itinerary

On the day we visited Osaka, our daughter wasn’t keeping well. So we had to start later than what we had hoped for, and also did things leisurely than our original plan.

Morning: Visit Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle is the city’s premier tourist attraction and one of the prettiest castles in Japan. The original castle built many centuries ago has been destroyed multiple times (World War, Boshin War, stuck by lightening etc) and what you see today is the modern reconstruction of the same. There is an entrance fee of 600 yen to the main castle but the surrounding gardens are free to walk around. The paid entrance will get you to different floors of the castle displaying interesting history and eventually leading up to the top floor from where you can get some panoramic views of the city. We decided to not enter the castle and unless you have the castle as a must visit item on your list, it’s best to avoid.

There is another gated garden on the western side of the castle park called Nishinomaru Garden. The entrance to that is 200 yen and is one of the famous Hanami places in Osaka. With over 600 cherry blossom trees in the garden, it is one of the top places for viewing cherry blossoms in the city with a backdrop of castle in it. The cherry trees in Osaka weren’t in full bloom yet and so, the gardens didn’t appeal too much for us on the day we visited. It still offered some of the best views of the castle from far along with the cherry blossoms in the frame and we spent an hour there before breaking for lunch.

On our way back from the castle, the road from castle to the nearest JR station took us through an interesting path which was lined up with numerous Sakura trees in almost full bloom. This was one of the first set of concentrated Sakura trees we had encountered on our Japan itinerary till then, and we were very excited seeing such a beautiful canopy of pink flowered trees.

Afternoon: Visit Shinsekai New World

Shinsekai (New World) is an old neighborhood located in south of Osaka city modeled around the New York city. Once a bustling entertainment district, it has now been reduced to only a shadow of what it was before, because of continued underinvestment. The centerpiece of the neighborhood is Tsutenkaku Tower, modeled around the Eiffel tower. The place comes alive by the late evening when the neon lights kick in. We didn’t spend a lot of time on these streets but instead visited a couple of shopping places nearby – Mega Don Quijote, Daiso. If you have more time to spend, you can check out other shopping streets around here: Janjan Yokocho shopping street, Tsutenkaku Hondori shopping street

Early Evening: Visit Namba Yasaka Shrine

Namba Yasaka Shrine is another interesting shrine situated south of Osaka in the Namba district. It is a short walk from the JR Namba station. It’s enormous lion head-shape building for an entrance makes for an excellent Instagram spot. The lion’s head is the main draw of this place and there isn’t much appeal to the shrine itself.

Late Evening: Visit Dotonbori area

By the time we reached Dotonbori area, it was already dark which is a perfect time to visit this place. Lined with garish neon-covered buildings, the Dotonbori Canal is the most iconic sight in all of Osaka. Dotonbori is quite colorful and chaotic at the same time. It is a crowded entertainment district with flashy signs and symbols outside each store/restaurant to attract customers.

The most famous of these signs are the “Glico man” – advertising ‘Glico’ Japan’s major confectionery, “The Moving Crab” – of the restaurant Kani Doraku which heroes dishes made from crab, “Karl Ojisan” – featuring the popular snack “karl” and its main character, “Gigantic fugu (pufferfish)” sticking out from the restaurant Zuboraya which specializes in pufferfish dishes, “Don Quijote Dotonbori’s Ferris Wheel” – Ebessan the god of thriving business chilling out with Donpen, Don Quijote’s cute penguin and “The angry man” bill board from Kushikatsu Daruma.

If you have more time, additional things you can do around this area –
1. Take a boat ride on the Dotonbori canal
2. Shinsaibashi-suji shopping- On the north side of the Ebisu-bashi Bridge is the famous Shinsaibashi-suji shopping arcade. It is a 600 meters long covered shopping street where you can find lots of restaurants, trendy boutiques, high-end designer labels and department stores, chain retail shops, and drugstores.
3. Den-Den Town – Osaka’s answer to Tokyo’s Akihabara, Den-Den is the city’s electronics, camera, computer and pop culture shopping neighborhood
4. Pokémon Café – It is a popular café featuring Pokémon characters. Prior reservations are required which open up a month in advance and very hard to get.

Closing Thoughts

1 day is enough to get an essence of Osaka, especially if you aren’t into non-veg food and not a food lover. We skipped Universal Studios in Osaka but would recommend for others as its one of the most famous things to do here. What it lacks in character, the city makes up for it through its other uniqueness – its famous shopping street, street foods, flashy neon billboards and entertainment districts.