Trip report part 2 – Osaka (3 nights) + Hakone (1 night)

Hello everyone, this is part 2 of our trip report, focusing on Osaka and Hakone. Part 1 focused on Kyoto is here if you are interested:

https://old.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/177h13a/trip_report_part_1_kyoto_4_days_with_food_review/?ref=share&ref_source=link

—-

**Osaka**

*Day 1:*

Traveled from Nara, when we got to Osaka station checked in to our hotel [Karaksa hotel osaka namba](https://maps.app.goo.gl/m2WBTotioMp51EPY6). This was probably our favourite hotel during the trip (except hakone), location was good, building seemed very clean and modern, they offer easy luggage shipping service, best of all they had a free refreshment/snack area which we utilized every night when we returned to the hotel. Will stay here again if we ever come back to Osaka.

It was only ~3pm at this time, so we decided to visit [Shinsekai](https://imgur.com/dQLMNLb), it’s a cool area, kind of an older vibe, very touristy, lots of shops lining the streets. We decided to have a late lunch at Kura sushi here.

Now conveyor belt sushi was something I was really looking forward to going to Japan, I love sushi and i enjoy the novelty of the conveyor belt delivery system. I knew it wouldn’t be the highest quality, but still the sushi was just not good at all and fell well below my expectations. Maybe my standards have gone up after my previous sushi meal in Kyoto. I’d rate it 3/10, will definitely not be going again. It definitely is very affordable, still might be worth a visit if you aren’t a snob like me. I still won’t be giving up on conveyor belt sushi, next time I’ll try a nicer(?) place like Katsumidori

After we made our way to Abeno Harukas. I don’t see this in too many people’s itineraries but I thought it was well worth it. The building was the tallest building in japan (300m) for a long time before finally being surpassed this year. For reference, the tokyo government building and Mori tower are much shorter, both coming in ~240m and IMO Abeno has the superior [views](https://imgur.com/a/So5D6nV). The observation area is all indoors but absolutely massive, you can head one floor down to a cafe area with lots of tables. We were able to relax and watch the sunset here, pretty awesome seeing the sun go down bit by bit and finally disappearing into the horizon.

Our night activity was Osaka Teamlabs garden. It’s not as popular as Tokyo teamlabs, we bought tickets the day of online, it’s all outdoors so I would go when weather is good. I thought this wasn’t really worth it at all, my partner enjoyed it. I thought it was just a bunch of bright balls in the night over and over again. One good thing is it’s much less crowded than the Tokyo teamlabs due to the venue being so much larger.

—

*Day 2:*

One of my good food memories from last last Japan trip was the breakfast at a gyudon restaurant. We went to Yoshinoya which was near our hotel, ordered a gyu don and an oyakodon. Now I love oyakodon, one of my favourite meals to cook at home, and this was the best oyakodon I ever had (8.5/10) I would love to know how they make theirs taste so good. Honestly anything with egg in Japan was really good. I noticed at supermarkets they don’t keep eggs refrigerated which is different than in Canada. Unfortuantely the gyudon was a disappointment (3/10), the beef slices seemed pretty low quality and very fatty.

Then walked around Dotonbori and the shinsaibashi-suji covered shopping street, and had [Cheese tart pablo](https://maps.app.goo.gl/ojbJMPbZH2AKhEXy6). We got the regular (7/10), matcha (7.5/10), and creme brulee (8.5/10) cheese tarts. There’s actually a pablo cheese tart location in our home city so I tried it shortly after returning from japan and it was just not the same…

After we headed to Umeda region to visit the Pokemon Centre and Nintendo store here. Apparently the nintendo store is the biggest in japan, so worth a visit for sure if you’re a nintendo fan. We also went to pokemon/nintendo at Shibuya as well, if seems like the tokyo locations had different/more stuff? Especially when it comes to pokemon. The Osaka location is a lot less busy than the Shibuya location though.

Also did the Hep 5 ferris wheel, it was free with our Osaka amazing pass, zero line

Then we headed to Umeda Sky building. A bit of a long walk to get here but the building and [elevator](https://imgur.com/XYoXfpD) to get to the top is very cool. I thought the view at the top was better than Abeno harukas, maybe it’s the fact that it’s open air, maybe I just like [bridges](https://imgur.com/Mc5mMwx)

Our night activity was exploring Dotonbori and eating from the street food stalls. It was unbelievably packed, which is to be expected, we tried the classic okonomiyaki and taokyaki from a couple places. The takoyaki was very good, way better than ones I’ve had outside of Japan. Wasn’t a fan of okonomiyaki at either of the places I tried. The cabbage doesn’t really have a lot of flavor on its own, you’re just tasting the mayo and brown sauce which was just too salty for me.

The best food we had at Dotonbori was probably the melon pan ice cream, I can’t seem to find the store on google maps but you can’t miss it as it has a giant display of a melon pan opening and closing above the store (which another tourist thought was a clam lol)

We also did a river boat cruise which was also included in the osaka pass. It was quick, ~20 min, could probably skip this if you don’t get the amazing pass.

—

*Day 3*

Honestly by this time, we thought we had seen most of what we had to see in osaka so we were looking for more things to do.

For brunch we went to [Gyukatsu motomura](https://maps.app.goo.gl/hYMPnSJC8KHW3Nxs8), it’s a pretty popular chain location, there’s another one nearby in like a 5 min walk and a bunch of locations in Tokyo as well. This was probably the best [meal](https://imgur.com/RSONRHM) we had in Osaka (8.5/10). The menu pretty much has one item which is a beef cutlet which is deep fried which you then cook on your own on a stone top. You can choose either 1, 1.5 or 2 cutlets, I was satisfied after just 1. One downside is you’ll get quite a bit of oil spatter from cooking the meat on the stone top. I would make sure you don’t have your phone/wallet/camera on the table.

After this we grabbed a latte at [Mill pour coffee](https://imgur.com/x86ShYQ). We got coffee pretty much every day in Japan and I would say this was among the best. The latte was super smooth and creamy, only of only 2 places where I thought it was clearly better than the latte I’m used to from my regular place in Vancouver.

Then we decided to visit [Izakaya Toyo](https://maps.app.goo.gl/CemPyf3GGFYJ6ASZ8), he was featured on a show on Netflix and is popular on instagram/tiktok due to his interesting cooking technique. It was super [busy](https://imgur.com/IoBfBC4) when we got there, mostly tourists but some locals as well I think. I think it’s interesting the power of social media nowadays, places like this, Kichi Kichi ect blowing up.

Waited around 20 minutes in line then directed to the table area which you’re sharing with other people. Ordered the signature tuna cheeks and sashimi…based purely on the food I’d say it was a 4/10, probably wouldn’t recommend, it’s kind of far out of the way too. It’s pretty cool to see the amount of [energy](https://imgur.com/VkLHDAP) the chef has though. Very friendly, entertaining guy and even took pictures with some tourists who asked.

After this we went to [Tejinbashi-suji shopping street](https://maps.app.goo.gl/uHTJXaAbsRQXZxtt5), which is apparently the longest covered shopping street in Japan. I honestly don’t remember anything noteworthy about this place, pretty similar to other covered shopping streets I went to before in Kyoto/osaka.

For our nighttime activity, we headed back to Shinsekai again because we didn’t have anything else to do. I think it looks much cooler at [night](https://imgur.com/gHFIxgP) compared to day, loved seeing the [night lights](https://imgur.com/kxQxe1w) and the streets are much more alive.

—

*Osaka overall thoughts*

* I liked Osaka least out of the cities we went to in Japan, 1 fewer day would have been better

* Next time will just do a day trip here from Kyoto unless we decide to go to Universal

* Will do more research next time to book some restaurant reservations, the street food wasn’t as good as I expected.

—

**Hakone**

*Day 1*

I didn’t really do any research about Hakone prior to the trip, just booked an ryokan with a private bath, intended to be a relaxing break in the middle of our trip. The night before I was doing some research, browsing this subreddit and learned about the Hakone loop. Decided to include this as we can’t check into our hotel until 3pm anyway.

Left our hotel around 830am, went to Shin osaka to take shinkansen to Odawara station. Bought some bento box for food which had a self-heating function which I thought was cool. Arrived @ odawara at 12:45pm, got our Hakone free pass, then took bus to moto hakone port to take the pirate ship to do the hakone loop in the clockwise direction.

One smart thing we did was ship our luggage from our hotel in Osaka to our final hotel in Tokyo thanks to reading tips from people on here. The bus from odawara to moto hakone gets absolutely packed and the rear doors arent functional as they configured it to have luggage stored in that area.

There were tourists carrying around big luggages, luggages flying around in the storage area bumping into people, when people had to get off at their hotel stop pretty much the entire front half of the bus has to disembark to let the person with luggage through to exit at the front of the bus.

We upgraded to the “first class” area of the pirate ship. You get to be in the front half of the boat for better views(?), a lot less crowded, and it wasn’t that expensive either. One thing we missed out on due to time constraint was going to the Hakone shrine, got to see it from the [boat](https://imgur.com/SoxBO1P) though.

We landed at Togendai port, then took the ropeway to go up to Owakudani. It was around 330 by this time. This is the place famous for black eggs, we bought two different types of black eggs. One where just the shell was black with inside being normal white, and another version where it was almost like a preserved egg with black inside as well. Not sure which is the more legit one. It was semi cloudy the entire day, but lucky for us the weather cleared in time and we were able to catch a [glimpse](https://imgur.com/yMAVTUz) of mount fuji from here.

Honestly the hakone loop was way more enjoyable than I thought it would be, I was glad I included it last minute to our itinerary. We got lucky with the weather, it would have been very different if it was raining, probably would have went straight to hotel.

—

After this, we headed to our 4/5 star ryokan [Madoka no mori](https://maps.app.goo.gl/KBeZ2bPerUux5wBi6). I booked this place with about a month to go, so by that time there wasn’t a lot of selection left. This place had very good reviews pretty much everywhere and it was definitely a splurge.

The hotel seemed modern and traditional at the same time. You take off your shoes right when you enter and the rest of the time you’re roaming around without shoes. The lobby was [gorgeous](https://imgur.com/Ji9amdu), the staff are extremely polite, it was almost too much (not just bowing, but getting on their knees to do a deep bow)

Our room was absolutely massive (69m2), the best part was the [open air bath](https://imgur.com/qcocJYE). I don’t know if it’s placebo or not but it felt like the onsen water makes your skin feel really soft.

The ryokan was fully booked but we didn’t hear or see a single soul the entire time there. We went to the public baths as well and neither of us saw anyone else, maybe because it was pretty late by that time.

Now the dinner, this exceeded our expectations. I purposely didn’t book a kaiseki style meal anywhere else as I knew this would be a kaiseki meal. Plus i’m a picky eater so I might not like some of the things. The dinner was [9 courses](https://imgur.com/lYH3gIK), it was clear they spent a lot of effort in the meal especially with the [presentation](https://imgur.com/a/So5D6nV). My favourite was actually the Koshihikari rice, kind of a weird thing to say but I normally love rice, eat it almost every day, and this was the best plain white rice I’ve ever had. They gave a huge portion of the rice and I ate every last grain mixed with the miso soup.

—
*Day 2:*

Woke up, first thing I did was chill in the private onsen. Honestly I think it will be hard to top this experience in the future.

Then they bring breakfast to your room, it was nice to have a traditional japanese [breakfast](https://imgur.com/vzLHdsm), I was completely full by the end.

Now overall, was this ryokan worth it? My initial impression at the time was yes, but that might have been just the initial excitement. I definitely think we overpaid quite a bit as we booked last minute and there was only 1 room left. It was a large suite room but we didn’t really utilize space at all as it was just the 2 of us. This was also the first ryokan we stayed at, there could be some that are just as good if not better.

If you book the standard rooms you don’t have dinner at your room, you go down to a different area where you still have a private room and the meals are a little bit different according to our waiter. However, every room comes with their own private bath. I think that’s way better value for money, 95% of the experience for 60% of the cost.

Now to return to Tokyo, I booked the romancecar ahead of time online using the odakyu website. The interesting thing is, there are [different types](https://www.odakyu.jp/english/romancecar/lineup/) of romancecars, but they all cost the same. The best one is clearly the 70000 series with the observation deck. If you want to book the seats in the very first row for best views I think you have to camp out and reserve right as the reservation opens.

Now if you look at the [timetable](https://www.odakyu.jp/english/romancecar/timetable/), there are very few romancecars heading from hakone to tokyo that are the 70000 series. There’s one at 932, the next one’s not until 112. We reserved seats for the 932, but we loved the onsen so much that we wanted to stay as long as possible until our 11am check out. The good thing is you can still change reservation, so we just booked another romancecar with no viewing platform as we didn’t want to wait around until 112.

—

Sorry for the wall of text, this concludes the osaka/hakone leg of our trip, will post my final trip report of Tokyo in the coming days.