Brief: Our first trip to Osaka, Japan.
Stay in Namba (Hotel Monterey Grasmere), traveled to Nara, Kobe, Kyoto.
(ภาษาไทย)
While living/working in Busan (South Korea), we decided to take advantage of our close proximity to Japan and do a little exploring. We picked Osaka as our destination with a short 1.5 hrs flight direct from Busan!
There are many airlines that offer flights from Busan to Osaka, we decided to try Busan Air with 3-4 flights a day!
Flights from Busan to Osaka are about $250 per person with 15kgs-suitcase allowed.
To fly to OSAKA you have to fly to KANSAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
It only took 20 mins after landed to get thru the immigration! It was a very long line but they did a pretty good job of moving people!
We traveled with our US passports and got 30day tourist visa non arrival (stamp).
From the airport to Namba station, where we stayed for this trip, we planned to take the “NANKAI” which is located on 2F in the airport.
The Nankai train line, you can pick Reserved Seat ticket or No Reserved.
We got the Reserved tickets for 2 of us, they gave us tickets for the next train which was about 10-15 mins wait.
The train station is opposite the ticket counter!
Our reserved ticket was 1270Yen or ~$12, if you weren’t sure which train to take, you can ask the train traffic guy in that area.
Kansai Airport is a huge international airport but it’s a very friendly tourist airport!
Once you arrived at the Namba station, don’t forget to take the train ticket with you! You need those tickets to get out the station gate. Tim left it on the train, we had to run thru the gate – very scary!!! NOT RECOMMENDED!
I found a recommendation on where to stay for the first time visiting Osaka as either Namba or Umeda.
We picked to stay in Namba because it was close to Dotonburi Shopping Street, Kuromon Fish Market and the most subway lines are here!
We stayed at Hotel Monterey Grasmere for the whole trip, it’s about $200 a night and included breakfast (very good breakfast!)
I picked the corner room, it had double beds but we got more room space.
The hotel offers a complimentary smartphone to use during our stay (not sure if they have them in all guestrooms…) It’s unlimited 4g net and free international calls (USA, South Korea, Taiwan…)
–> Well, it took about 2 hrs since we landed the Kansai Airport to get to our hotel in Namba!
But we didn’t know that we can walk thru the subway underground to the hotel!
When we first arrived at Namba station, we got off the station and walked up to the street level. It’s a pretty hard to walk with our bags!
FYI The Namba station is an underground subway station which you can walk to the Hotel Monterey Grasmere, JR Namba Station, OCAT (Bus Building – we took the bus here back to Airport).
The underground walk has many shops! It’s also good for shopping and eating (especially for a raining day).
As I mentioned The OCAT building which is the next building to our Hotel is the bus station. We took the bus over here back to Kansai airport, it’s very convenient! We paid 1,100 Yen (~$10) but it’s NON-RESERVED TICKETS.
You can buy the tickets on the day you ride only.
You can find the bus schedule at the bus terminal (on the 2nd floor in this building), the bus arrives at the airport as scheduled! It takes about an hour to ride from Namba to Kansai Airport.
At this bus station, you can catch the bus to Kyoto, Kobe, etc. It’s very nice!
Hotel Location: We really like this hotel, we are sure to stay here again if we come back to Osaka.
The only thing that bothers me (maybe not for Tim), I have to take 2 elevators to go up/down to the hotel rooms (the hotel lobby is on floor 22nd). But other things are perfect!
It takes about 10mins to walk to The Fish Market (Koromon) and it’s an about 15mins walk to Dotonburi and Shopping street.
Under our hotel building which is connected to the underground walk on B1 floor, there is a grocery shop called Central Square Life, we went here to grab TOGO sushi many times! It’s very fresh food/fruit and all you need is here!
Namba station is connected to many OSAKA subway lines.
There are 2 kinds of the train lines that we found in Osaka, one is called OSAKA subway (there are many lines, sometimes we mentioned them in colors like Red line, Blue line etc) and another one call JR Line (Japan Rail Line). We don’t get real comfortable riding the JR line (it’s very hard to us to get around with JR), we took it one time to Kyoto (because we misunderstood or just got lost).
So for our trip, we won’t talk much about the JR Line.
Kansai Region!
Remember? We flew into Osaka at Kansai Airport – remember? the airport name as its region (there are a couple of airports in Osaka).
The region includes the prefectures of Mie, Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo, and Shiga, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima, and Tottori.
So our Osaka trip is not just in Osaka , but also explored Nara, Kobe (in Hyogo) and Kyoto!
Day 1: We arrived in OSAKA late in the afternoon, we didn’t do much today. But It’s a birthday trip for Tim, so it’s a little surprise dinner at Hardrock (he is a big fan of HardRock’s T-shirt!). There are 2 HardRocks in Osaka, one is in Honmachi (this is 2 stations away from Namba), and one is in Universal Studios City Walk.
I sent an email to reserve the table and ask them for a birthday surprise song, they are very nice to reply to my email and even help to set all up to the dinner perfectly!
Day2: Nara, the Deers city.
If you’re planning to visit Osaka, put NARA in your destination list – it’s a MUST GO while you are in Osaka or in Kansai Region!
Unless you are scared of deers because there are thousands of deers that walking around the public park. Technically, they are walking with you in that city!
Nara is only 35mins train ride from Osaka, there is the shopping Street called Higasimuki right next to the Nara Station. And the most beautiful wooden temple “Todaiji”, a MUST SEE temple!
–> Read More Nara Park (Deers) and Higasimuki Shopping Street
–> Read More Todaiji Temple
Day3: Kobe, Chinatown, Best Beef Steak Land, Arima Hot Spring
I was drooling to watch all youtube about Kobe Beef, and truly expected this will be our highlight for our Osaka trip to try the best world’s beef steak in their original town!
But it’s just ok to visit Chinatown which it’s more like Chinese food street for us. The Kobe Beef steak at Steak Land was very delicious but Kobe beef is offered everywhere we go! I mean we don’t need to take the 40mins train from Namba to Kobe for just steak!
Last at Arima Hot Spring where is about 20mins away from Kobe city but 3 different train lines! And all in Arima is not English friendly signs, so it’s hard to find the right hot spring package if you didn’t book or reserve it online.
Today is a little failure for me but it’s another good day out of Osaka.
Day4: It’s time to explore OSAKA!
Today we traveled around OSAKA but it’s the raining day! We visited Osaka Castle (it’s a Museum, I thought it would be like the Palace or Castle). Then I tried to stop at Tenjimbashisuji Shopping Street for Sushi Lunch at Harukoma Sushi BUT IT CLOSED! And then we went to Amerika Mura, another shopping street where you can find stuff for US/Western styles.
And the famous Dotonbori where is only 10-15mins walk from our hotel.
Actually, we went here almost every night for dinner.
Day5: Kyoto
Kyotowas the capital of Japan for over a millennium, and carries a reputation as its most beautiful city and the nation’s cultural capital. Visitors may be surprised by how much work they will have to do to see Kyoto’s beautiful side. But we only visited the Shrines (with thousand red pillars), Fire Ramen, and Nikishi Market (Fish Market).
Day 6: Relax (last) day in Osaka.
We didn’t do much in on the last day, just walk around Namba area to Kuromon Market (Namba Fish Market), stop for making wishes at Hozonji Temple with Moss covered Statue (you have to pour water on the statue while you’re making a wish). Then shopping!
Recap: If I’m going back to OSAKA again or if I’m taking friends or family back there, I would do only 3-4 days trip, just skip day 3 (Kobe) and Day 6 from this trip.
.
