This section will cover the second part of our trip in Osaka. For the first part in Hokkaido, you can find the report [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/187uwno/trip_report_nov_9_27_hokkaido_osaka_tokyo/).
Nov 15 – Oriental Hotel Universal City
Woke up and checked out of hotel, the staff was able to help us ship the luggage from Hakodate to Osaka. For those wondering, because someone asked in the previous post, we dropped off our luggage at 9am Nov 15, it arrived at our Osaka hotel on Nov 17th. We packed 3 days worth of clothing just in case there was delay and backpacked our way to Osaka. After checking out, we went to check out the morning fish market nearby. It wasn’t as big, but the Uni Don we had was just as good. After eating, we continued to walk around until the airport shuttle bus arrived. It was a bus from JR Hakodate station to Hakodate Airport right outside the station, $500 yen per person. After landing in Osaka (we flew to ITM instead of KIX), we headed to Umeda and spent some time around the area and did some shopping before heading towards USJ area as we booked a Universal partner hotel. It was very convenient and there was still plenty of food options available at around 9pm. We picked up some sandwich from Lawson in preparation for the next morning.
Location of Hotel: **5/5** Hotel staff: **4/5** Service/Amenities: **4/5**
Overall: **4.33/5** Recommend: **Yes**
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Nov 16 – Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka
Today was USJ day, we met up with some friends at 7am to line up at the gates. We put our backpacks in the storage lockers right outside USJ. We were let in around 8:30am and rushed straight towards Super Nintendo Land. Made it into Mario Kart and the queue was mostly just walking to the beginning of the ride. After we were done with Mario Kart, Super Nintendo Land was already PACKED. we decided to head back out first as we had express pass for a later time. There wasn’t anything special that happened other than Backdrop going on maintenance at our express pass time, so we were giving a paper that would work as an express pass to a selection of I think 5-7 rides. We left USJ around 7pm as we were all tired and went through pretty much all the rides and did all our shopping already. We headed back towards Dotonbori to find dinner, we had Sukiyaki at. It was really good, or we were really hungry. We said our temporary goodbyes with our friends and headed to our hotel. The hotel is really fancy, we only picked it because it was right by JR Namba and for the price we felt was fair, but the lobby was on the 22nd floor! It eventually felt like a hassle to go up and down because you would have to go from 1st floor to 22nd floor then take a separate elevator up to our room, but it was one of the nicer hotels we stayed at during this trip.
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Nov 17 – Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka
We were still recovering from our USJ day so we decided to take it easy today, woke up late and had the shrimp burger at a nearby McDonald, then headed to Umeda to pick up our JR Pass. We didn’t activate our pass right away as we didn’t feel like we were going to be traveling much today anyways. Then we walked around the area a bit and worked our way back down towards Den Den Town. After some browsing, unsuccessful in finding any Gunpla that interested me, we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage from front desk. Then we found a 24hr laundromat not too far from the hotel, it was about a 10 min walk, so we went to get that done. A full load, wash + dry, was $1300 yen. After that we walked to Dotonbori and looked around for dinner, ended up stumbling upon a 1 Michelin star Ramen Restaurant. I couldn’t find it’s English name, so I’ll link the location [here](https://www.google.com/maps?q=Japan,+%E3%80%92542-0083+Osaka,+Chuo+Ward,+Higashishinsaibashi,+1+Chome%E2%88%9215%E2%88%9223+%E9%87%8E%E5%8F%A3%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3+%E5%BF%83%E6%96%8E%E6%A9%8B%E5%BA%97&ftid=0x6000e7bdccb26dfb:0x646bfb086782ca3e&hl=en-CA&gl=ca&entry=gps&lucs=,47088957,94203325,47075489,47071704,47069508,94202293&g_ep=CAISDDYuOTUuMC4yODUyMRgAINeCAyo2LDQ3MDg4OTU3LDk0MjAzMzI1LDQ3MDc1NDg5LDQ3MDcxNzA0LDQ3MDY5NTA4LDk0MjAyMjkzQgJDQQ%3D%3D&g_st=im). It was unique in that the broth was made with shellfish instead of pork or chicken broth. Also the price was very good, I believe it was $1300 yen per bowl? After the satisfying meal, we headed back to the hotel and ended our day.
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Nov 18 – Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka
Woke up nice and early to head to Himeji Castle. The castle was amazing, but one thing to note is that a lot of the stairs were very steep and the head room was low. I’m 5’10 and I had to duck on most stairs. We spent around an hour and a half at Himeji before heading back to the station and made our way to Hiroshima. Visited the Atomic Dome, the line up for the museum was insane, there were probably 100 people lining up OUTSIDE the doors to the line up inside. We decided to skip it and moved on with our plans. We headed to Miyajima Island, saw some very calm deers and had some very tasty grilled oysters. We didn’t stay too long as most shops were starting to close around 4:30pm. We made our way back to Kobe and had a very nice Kobe Beef dinner at Mouriya. This was our one splurge dinner. We finished our day and headed back to the hotel. It was very windy and we had not dressed appropriately for the weather, the day before was in the mid to high 10s C but as we got to Himeji it was closer to 6 C. This was the day my wife started to get sick.
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Nov 19 – Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka
We reunited with our friends (we ended up booking the same hotel without prior planning!) and headed to Kuromon Market for breakfast. It was a different vibe than the ones we went to in Hokkaido, much more touristy and prices were higher in comparison, but there were also more options. After breakfaster we made our way over to Nagai Botanical Garden, it was a nice day and we were able to get some nice photos. Not a lot of flowers were blooming at this time but the garden was a nice change of pace. After that we headed towards Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, did a quick walk and had some snacks there. After that our group split up, 2 of them heading towards Osaka Castle, the other 3 of us decided to treat ourselves to a nice foot massage. Then we decided to take another stroll at Den Den Town. At this point, my wife was starting to feel worse, so once we met back up with our castle friends (who actually didn’t make it there in time because they got lost), I took my wife back to the hotel to nap before dinner. For dinner we met up with another friend and his family who lives in Naha, we had an all-you-can-eat yakiniku. It was great because we had 2 locals who could order in Japanese and we just sat back and had a good time. It was a timed 90 minutes all-you-can-eat. We were all so full afterwards, can be safe to say we made our money back. After that, we (minus the friends we just met up) decided to go round one. We each came out with a prize and called it a night after that.
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Nov 20 – Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka
Woke up early and headed to Toei Studio Park with the friends. It was a good experience even though most things were targeted towards little kids. The Evangelion exhibit was our main target, got some photos in and we went through the exhibits. After that we went to Sushiro for lunch and then made our way to check out the Mandarake and surrounding area. After that, we headed back to Osaka. We had izakaya near Osaka station, could be said to be the worst meal of our adventure. Then we went to a Taito station and Gigo and went for round 2 dinner at the ramen place linked above, then we took a taxi to another Round One only to find out the crane machine floors are closed. We ended up playing pool for a bit as it was the last night for our friends before they’re heading back towards Tokyo.
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Nov 21 – Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka
Woke up and went to Kobe Sanda premium outlets, it seems like outlet prices are just regular prices now but with slight discounts, it wasn’t worth it in our eyes, we ended up not getting anything left towards Kyoto. We checked out the Gundam Base Satellite shop and then lined up for the Gion Duck Rice. Surprisingly the wait wasn’t that bad, the server told us it might take up to 1hr 45m but in reality we waiting closer to 1 hr. We went back to the hotel after and I did another load of laundry before leaving Osaka. At this point my wife felt like she was dying so I just explored the night life a little bit myself before calling it a night.
Location of Hotel: **5/5** Hotel staff: **5/5** Service/Amenities: **5/5**
Overall: **5/5** Recommend: **Yes**
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This ends our Osaka/Kyoto part of the trip. I personally enjoyed Osaka more because it’s less crowded. We only spent 2 days in Kyoto but it was so crowded everywhere that it made me not want to spend too long there. Hopefully I’ll get a second chance as there are so many more things I wanted to see in Kyoto. Part 3 to come!