Japan 2025 - Day 1

Good afternoon! It’s currently 5:05 and I’m in my hotel room smashing down beers with my wife and our friends after a full on day in Osaka Japan!

We woke pretty early around 5am and kinda just fluffed around for a bit, got ready and then went for a walk in search of breakfast. We made a few stops at vending machines for canned coffee. We ended up just having some goodies from convenience stores such as the Lawson’s fried chicken and mashing it together in a Frankenstein’s monster esk monstrosity with an egg salad sandwich (It was pretty damn delicious).

We then went for a walk through the dormant and sleepy Dotonbori, and strolled along the canal.

From there we headed to Osaka Castle, which to be honest with Japan’s public transport is an absolute piece of piss. My wife and I just added the Suica card to our iPhone wallets and away we went. Osaka castle first thing at 9am was pretty manageable as there wasn’t too many people, but by the time we had finished it was chokkas. We don’t opt to buy tickets online but I would recommend it in future as it does help you get into the castle quicker.

We then made our way to the Osaka train station with our sights set on Umeda Sky Building with the intention to visit the observation deck. This however didn’t come to fruition as we decided that there was better ways to spend ~$20pp and headed back to the station to head back to where we are staying, this was via the Grand Front Osaka shopping complex however. Nothing was bought but we did stop in and have a look at the Suntory whisky house.

We had ramen on Dontonbori for late lunch early dinner, and walked some more and visited a book off.

We are planning to go to Kyoto tomorrow, so hopefully I have some more to share with you tomorrow!

~Josh 1743 20250329