23.-26.02.2018 OSAKA/KOBE

We made our way to Osaka in the morning and went straight to the hostel. There we were greeted by a very relaxed, but still helpful staff member.

Right afterwards, we visited the Osaka Aquarium – they had Sea Otters, a Capybara (they are HUGE), enormous stingrays, dolphins, penguins and of course lots and lots of different fish. We were there when the penguins were being fed, however on ground level one couldn’t see much – we later found out that we could have walked down and watch from there.

We wanted to go to LEGO Discovery Center afterwards, but apparently you need a kid to go in there. Unfortunately, we didn’t find anybody willing to borrow us theirs, so we had a Crepe with “milk-jam” (still don’t know what exactly that means, but it was delicious) instead.

At Tsutenkaku tower, Osakas watch tower, we saw the sun going down. Going up and down the tower was really strange, you had to pass through a museum/souvenir shop/arcade on the way, all subtly sponsored by Patty/Poppy/Pricky/(ok I seriously can’t remember the brand, so guess the marketing wasn’t all too effective anyway).

We ate at a Teppanyaki restaurant again that evening, where we shared some kind of Okonomiyaki/pancake/something tower and some spicy rice with beef and an egg.

BGC: 31 (4)

The next day, we did a day trip to Kobe. There at Harbourland we saw an elevator going in curves, a moving-lots-of-balls-around-roller-coaster and a nice view of the harbour itself.

After eating a bit we went to the Kobe Waterfalls. it was a nice hike up to the first one, but there was simply way too little water for it to be impressing – one could see where the water normally goes through though. We then went the path up another hill, however there was no proper peak to be found – at least none that was marked as such, we only saw trees. After going down a path we thought looked nice, we miraculously landed at our starting point again.

From there, it was only minutes to Kobe’s Chinatown, where we strolled around for a bit. We didn’t eat any Kobe beef that evening though, all the restaurants we saw didn’t look too appealing. We had a relaxing evening, I had quite a long talk with a Chinese girl, using google translate from time to time, since her English still had some room for improvement^^.

BGC: 33 (2)

In the morning, we finally had some proper bread for breakfast, that we bought the day before. The bread in Japan is like generally pretty weird, for example they sell French Baguette that looks exactly like the we are used to, one can see the crust and everything, however it’s simply NOT CRISPY… In my understanding, that will be the same in any of the destinations I’m headed to, unfortunately.

Osaka Castle was our first destination of the day, it is surrounded by a wide river on the outside and then a smaller moat near the actual castle again. Inside the Castle, we learned a LOT about it’s origins, it’s builder’s origins and Osaka as a whole, even though most of the info text wasn’t even translated into English.

The Castle garden was a thing for itself, they had a big area dedicated to cherry trees, they were just starting to bloom when we got there. We saw lots of hobby-photographers testing their skills on the first cherry blossoms, it was really funny to watch at times.

Afterwards, we explored Dotonbori area, filled with shops and shops and shops and restaurants. Naturally, we took dinner there as well.

In the evening we got talking with one of the hostel’s staff members, a Swiss girl from Bern, also a goddamn beautiful French couple and a German guy. After a while, only the German (Fabian) and we were left, having a fun time.

BGC: 35 (2)

We then spent the whole next day with the Fabian, having a chill breakfast and then walking about 2 hours to the Pokemon Center through lots of busy streets. Manu and Fabian stopped from time to time to try their luck at Gachapon machines for capsule toys.

The Pokemon Center itself was smaller than I imagined, however there was some Pokemon-GO event taking place at the time we arrived (I didn’t even know the community is still that alive, but yeah). In the end, I think all they got was a sticker, Idk if that could have been worth it but apparently it was for the people participating. After buying half of the Pokemon store (not really), we went on to other fan-shops in the same building. They had everything from Winnie the Pooh over The Jungle Book to OnePiece, not to forget the huge area dedicated to cats.

We ate Okonomiyaki that day, it was seriously delicious – the task of ordering was taken over by Fabian, since he can actually speak Japanese as opposed to me and Manu.

BGC: 39 (4)