Japan - Day 7 - Osaka, reserving green car tickets, okonomiyaki
Nothing says Osaka like the Glico Man sign. There were sooo many people taking photos of themselves doing the same pose.
Zooming back to earlier in the day, we checked out of our hotel in Nara. We also got our JR pass started. Great thing is that Nara station now processes JR passes. You need to present them with your JR voucher and your passport. We had bought a 2 week JR pass and for the Green car, which is first class. To tell you the truth, I don't know if it was really worth it. Most of the smaller trains do not have green cars and generally you can only get the green cars on the Shinkansen. Worst of all, you have to reserve your green car seats, meaning that you have to go to a counter and ask for a seat reservation.
What I did was pick our trains carefully at first. The best place for this is Hyperdia. Here you type in your origin and your destination and roughly the time you want to leave. It will then give you a timetable of trains (it also gives you alternatives such as buses and subways and even an airplane! Just untick those at the bottom of the page if you are not interested). It will give you the name of the train (eg NOZOMI 15, incidentally, the JR pass does not work with NOZOMI or MIZUHO trains, but again you can untick this at the bottom of the page). What I do is write down the train name, the time it leaves and the origin and destination. I then take it to the ticket desk and with the most basic Japanese say "Yoyaku kore kudasai" (reserve this please). Most of the time they just answer back in English. You will need to present your JR pass, they print out tickets for you (in English) and off you go.
Anyway, back to Osaka...
We took the JR train to Osaka then hopped on another train to Shin-Osaka. What can I say, Osaka station is massive and brand new, whereas Shin-Osaka (literally new-Osaka) station was a confusing mess. Because we got off on the JR station level, we had no idea how to get out. We did actually wander around for ages trying to find an exit on the side that we wanted. Finally we decided to try going up to the Shinkansen level. Only from here could we exit on the north side of the station. We were to take an early Shinkansen the next day and I wanted to stay near this station, I picked a place called Garden Palace Hotel. FYI if you want to exit the station and get to this hotel: From the JR station platform level, follow the signs up to Shinkansen. From here, head towards the McDonalds within the buildling. Just in front of McDonalds is an escalator going down, take this down, walk past a convenience store and into a rather grimy looking tunnel, you want to take the first set of stairs on your right. This brings you down to street level and you will see a massive bike storage area on the left. Just in front of this is a bus stop for complimentary buses ferrying you to the Garden Palace Hotel. They leave every 15 mins. If not you can walk straight down the road and the hotel will be on your right, about a 15 min walk. Of course it will be before the 2pm check in time, so we just dumped our bags at reception and headed off to Dotonbori
Since we were here on the weekend, get a day pass for 600 yen. It's possibly called the "Enjoy Eco-Card" but you just go to a ticket machine at the train station, press the English function and buy a one day pass. This allows you travel on all the public transport within Osaka for the day. You can buy it ahead of time as it is only validated when you go through the gates. It costs 800 yen for a weekday, so it depends how much you will use it to see if it will be worthwhile. Again Hyperdia can help you calculate your fares.
Dotonbori by day is fairly quiet
Famous clown playing the drum
As markets are our thing, we headed off to Kuromon Ichiba market. This is a market selling wet and dry goods as well as small shops selling clothing and tea. As it was hot, we each got a fresh vegetable juice (yummy) and some snacks to eat. The whole thing is undercover, so it is great on a wet day. The market does cater to tourist, but doesn't feel too touristy.
Next was another market, but this time it was Kitchenware street. This is actually within walking distance of Dotonbori. This market is where restaurant chefs go to for their utensils and whatever else you need to fit out a shop. You will find knives (so expensive >.<), cookers, pans, plates, signs, plastic food displays (again so expensive, you are looking at about $15 for a sushi keychain!), everything you need for your shop. We didn't buy anything, but were tempted with an takoyaki pan. We did taste some takoyaki earlier in Dotonbori, but we were not that impressed by it.
This was in one of the covered arcades near the kitchenware street. There was a crowd, so we had a nosy and found chefs carving up some tuna. They were selling packs of it there and then.
Apparently a famous ramen chain. We didn't eat there, but there are three of these stores around Osaka.
Thought he was interesting. He also looks to be holding what South Australians would call a Dagwood Dog
Also, never say to meet up under the giant crab, there are loads of giant crab signs, also noteworthy, giant fugu signs, giant cow signs and giant octopus signs.
As night fell, the lights came on and the hoards of people emerged, see the fugu signs?
Canal by night. Here are where all the neon/LED signs are. This bridge will be full of people trying to take pictures of the Glico Man.
This bridge intersects Dotonbori and leads to a long covered shopping arcade. Since it was a Saturday night, it was packed with people. This arcade was so long that we gave up fighting with the people and left it.
For dinner, we had to have the Osaka speciality. Okonomiyaki. We combed the stores and finally just picked one specialising in just okonomiyaki. We were expecting for it to be cooked in front of us, since there were hotplates, but it came all cooked. All the hotplate did was keep it warm.
We ended up with one each, one with seafood and one with bacon. Both looked exactly the same, but the bacon one was saltier. You will end up smelling like okonomiyaki when you leave ^^;
Walked off our greed after. Points if you can tell me what this sign is trying to advertise. Is it something for you to spend time with cats? A cat paradise parlour? Whatever it is, it's on the 3rd floor. The sign also had mewing sounds coming from it...
On the way back to the hotel, we saw many signs of Japan's space saving ideas
The room was tiny and smelt strongly of cigarette smoke, but we were there only for one night and it cost us about $80 for the night. Not bad for a Saturday. We would be back to stay in this hotel on the way back from Kochi city in a few days time.
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