This article is reposted from the WeChat public account of a reader in a WeChat group, 懒人 33 的吃喝玩乐. Original link.

Tenshukaku

This is what the back exit of InterContinental Osaka looks like. It opens into this shopping mall, and if you go up the escalator on the left, it connects to the entire Umeda area.

On our first day, we didn’t know that yet, so we went outside instead—and it was right during morning rush hour.

The mall by the hotel’s back entrance has plenty of shops and restaurants.

We ended up grabbing something to eat at FamilyMart—noodles, rice balls, and more. There were so many options it was almost overwhelming. Japan doesn’t seem to have many dedicated breakfast spots, and it felt like a lot of office workers just pick something up at convenience stores.

This FamilyMart even had tables and chairs inside, and after eating you could hand your trash to the store staff.

On the way to the subway station, we accidentally wandered into an electronics mall. My travel companion was very tempted to browse, but unfortunately we already had plans for the day.

The elevated walkways connected in every direction as we made our way to the subway station.

It was morning rush hour, but the train we took wasn’t very crowded.

There was also a women-only car, which could be used by adults with children in strollers.

There were manga displays in the subway station too.

“Antibacterial” elevator buttons—kind of felt like a gimmick.

We made it to Osaka Castle. There was a huge open plaza with great visibility all around.

Even the manhole covers were designed like the tenshukaku.

We were fully prepared to walk 1.5 kilometers to the tenshukaku, but as soon as we entered Osaka Castle Park, we saw a small train that goes directly there. Tickets for the train are cash-only and purchased from a machine, and it runs about every half hour. The Osaka Castle Park subway station side is not the starting station, so seats may be limited—be sure to line up early.

The little train was open-air, the weather was beautiful, and it was so relaxing to enjoy the scenery around Osaka Castle with a light breeze the whole way.

There was a stand on the roadside selling grilled sausages, and I was really tempted to get off and try one, but unfortunately you can’t hop off mid-ride.

Our kid loved the little train the most and was absolutely thrilled.

There were still a few late cherry blossoms left.

Before long, we could see the tenshukaku.

Around it was what looked like a moat, with sightseeing boats moving along the water.

After circling around quite a bit, we arrived at the front.

We took the elevator up to the 6th floor and then worked our way down level by level. There were lots of vivid and interesting exhibits inside. Even our child, who knew nothing about the history, found it pretty engaging, while my history-loving travel companion was completely absorbed.

There’s an observation deck on the top floor with panoramic views of Osaka Castle.

A chart of family crests—basically hereditary clan emblems.

Much of the museum’s history content also centers on Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

After we came out, our child looked a little sleepy, so we gave up on the boat ride. My travel companion checked the schedule and said the earliest one wasn’t for another three or four hours, so it seemed pretty popular.

We took the little train and got off at Morinomiya Station. It looked like it might rain soon.

Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

The afternoon plan was Kaiyukan. From Morinomiya, you can take the subway directly to Osakako Station, and from there it’s just a short walk.

The Osaka Port area felt a bit like Odaiba in Tokyo: lots of attractions and a great area for visiting with kids.

We were getting a little hungry at this point. Right outside the subway station was a takoyaki shop, so we bought one order: 10 for 400 yen.

My partner and kid also bought drinks from the vending machine nearby.

The older lady making the takoyaki was leaning against the wall while she worked...

They had everything set out: sanitizer, seasonings, and toothpicks.

The takoyaki was decent, nothing especially memorable. Since all three of us were hungry, we finished it off quickly.

You can even open a store for this kind of shooting game...

We passed the Tempozan Ferris Wheel.

There was also an indoor Legoland Discovery Center.

A Fujiya store.

Kaiyukan is on the second floor, with a small plaza out front.

While lining up to buy tickets, they also asked how old the child was.

As someone who enjoys snorkeling, I also really like visiting aquariums. This aquarium in Osaka is especially well designed: you take the escalator all the way to the top floor first, then slowly make your way down along a circular path. There are no forks in the route, so you never have to think about which way to go. In the middle is a massive cylindrical tank with whale sharks, and as you walk down you can see them from different angles the whole way. Aquarium fans should not miss it.

On top of that, the animals at Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan were the most active of any aquarium I’ve visited. At many other aquariums, the animals mostly lie around quietly, but here they were all energetic and constantly moving.

A fish tornado.

The penguins also felt quite different from the ones I’d seen elsewhere. Every one of them looked adorably clumsy, and it felt like each penguin was doing something different.

One in the middle kept trying to climb out of the water onto the ice, but couldn’t quite make it. The way it wiggled its little butt was hilarious. Too bad I didn’t capture it...

There was also one big fluffy guy.

Here come the whale sharks. They were very active too, constantly circling around.

This huge fish was trying to swim through the net and kept getting stuck there...

There was even a yellow ray! First time I’d ever seen one.

My partner and the fish made eye contact...

We even saw a ray pooping...

A giant crab. I think it was my first time seeing one this big in an aquarium. It looked like a huge spider.

This one had to be the crab boss — absolutely enormous.

The nurse sharks were all crowded together.

The ceiling above the down escalator was made to look like a starry sky, but I didn’t get a good photo of it.

The jellyfish area. There’s also a café in the middle of Kaiyukan that sells light meals, hot dogs, and similar snacks.

Time to see the baby seals.

On the 2nd floor there was a touch area. Before we went in, I told my kid there would be sharks and rays to touch, and they were incredibly excited. But the touch area was closed because of the pandemic, so there was nothing we could touch after all. Thankfully there was also a group of penguins, similar to the ones at the Seattle zoo, which helped redirect my kid’s attention.

There’s a gift shop on the ground floor with lots of cute Kaiyukan animal plushies.

It looks like you can buy the aquarium ticket together with the cruise ticket for a discount. The cruise boards right next to the aquarium.

After leaving the aquarium, there was a shopping mall across from the aquarium plaza. Just a short walk away was a food court, a good place to refuel.

I bought okonomiyaki. It tasted pretty much like I expected—decent enough.

I had originally planned to go browse Pokemon and some other anime and game shops on the 8th floor of Daimaru Department Store, but on the walk back from the aquarium to the subway station, we happened to come across a drugstore. We ended up browsing for a little too long and didn’t make it back to Umeda in time.

Most drugstores in Japan can process tax-free purchases directly. I hadn’t brought my passport with me that day, so I used the tax-free QR code from Visit Japan Web. So convenient.

Before I knew it, it was evening rush hour, but this side of the aquarium still wasn’t very crowded.

By then it was about time, so we headed straight to dinner. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention and rode past our stop, so after a bit of backtracking, our once-generous time cushion shrank to just barely enough to make it to the restaurant.

I’d seen on xhs that Osaka is known for oversized signs. I didn’t really notice that around Umeda, but on the way to dinner in Fukushima, near Umeda, I finally saw some giant signage.

All-Horse Feast

This dinner was the one I felt most nervous about on the entire trip. The restaurant was けとばし屋チャンピオン 福島店, with a 3.69 rating on tabelog. Reservations open one month in advance, and the hotel concierge helped us book it.

This restaurant specializes in horse meat dishes and sells almost nothing but horse meat. As someone from Xinjiang, I grew up eating smoked horse meat and smoked horse sausage, and my partner likes them too. But horse yakiniku, horse sashimi, and even horse liver sashimi were completely new to us.

The restaurant felt fairly spacious. It wasn’t large, but it didn’t feel cramped either. Our reservation was at 6:30, and by the time we arrived, the place was basically full, so it was clearly quite popular. The staff spoke almost no English, so it was time for me to break out my terrible Japanese again.

Also, this place didn’t offer a set menu or omakase, so you had to order everything yourself. Thankfully they had a diagram showing the different cuts of the horse.

They provided utensils for kids, but there wasn’t a separate children’s menu, so my kid just ate with the adults.

This was a horse sashimi combo, served with scallions, ginger, and garlic, and dipped in the restaurant’s special soy sauce. The four cuts were all very different from one another, but every one of them was delicious. They were prepared so well that there was none of the gaminess or fishiness I had worried about. Horse sashimi is a bit like beef sashimi, but with more chew and a slightly crisp, springy texture. The fatty parts also weren’t the melt-in-your-mouth kind you get with beef; they were firmer, almost muscular in texture, and eaten together with the lean meat they weren’t greasy at all. It was so good. I wanted to order another plate immediately, but I also wanted to save room for the grilled meat later.

Then the grilled meat arrived, with adorable little labels. The server grilled the first round for us as a demonstration, and we handled the rest ourselves. The grilled meat was delicious too. I have to say, this restaurant really did a great job with the preparation. Xinjiang smoked horse meat is more like jerky that you tear apart to eat, while this grilled version was tender yet springy, very pleasantly chewy, and a little juicy. Even the onions in the middle were unexpectedly excellent—sweet and flavorful even without dipping sauce, totally different from the onions we grill at home.

This was the dish I had been nervous about for the longest time: horse liver sashimi. As someone who likes trying unusual ingredients, eating horse liver sashimi itself wasn’t the strange part—I was just afraid it would be bitter. But it wasn’t bitter at all. It had a crisp-soft texture and was really tasty. It was actually better dipped in the same sauce from the horse sashimi than in the condiment served specifically for this dish.

That was all we ordered at first. After placing the order, I even asked the server if it would be too much, and she said it would be ok. As it turned out, we weren’t full at all, so we decisively ordered more.

One of these two grilled cuts was especially outstanding, but I couldn’t tell which one it was. Later I tried to order it again and ended up choosing the wrong one.

We also ordered horse tartare, which was delicious too. As lovers of raw food, my partner and I agreed that the sashimi dishes were even more impressive than the grilled meat.

The atmosphere in the restaurant was lively too—lots of loud conversation and hearty laughter.

If you’re comfortable eating raw horse meat, this place gets a full five-star recommendation from me. I’d give the grilled meat portion four stars. The atmosphere and service were both great as well.

I hadn’t expected to eat so well on both nights in Osaka, so I was thrilled.

We were so excited after dinner that we had no desire to go back to the hotel and sleep, so we took a taxi to go shopping instead. On the drive to Umeda, the streets were dark and almost empty, but once we went down to the B1 level, it was a completely different world—bright lights and crowds everywhere.

I did another round of shopping using the tax-free QR code, while my kid and my partner went to buy ice cream.

Then we strolled all the way back to the hotel. Another happy day.

Before leaving for Japan, I saw news that Love Between Fairy and Devil was going to air there. As a half-devoted fan, I had this lovely fantasy of watching the Japanese version of Love Between Fairy and Devil from my hotel bed. But once we got to Japan, my partner discovered that it only aired at 1 a.m. every Friday on a somewhat obscure TV channel, and that Friday we happened to be in Osaka, where our TV didn’t even have that channel. Fantasy shattered.

Another morning of sleeping in naturally, and it rained again that day. Unlike the sunshower we got in Kyoto, this time it was gray and misty.

After checking out, we took on the Umeda maze again. The night before, I felt like I had finally figured out the way back to the hotel from Umeda, so I was feeling very confident. But when we got to the subway station again the next morning, we got lost once more and had no idea where the route shown on Google Maps was supposed to be.

In the end, we took what felt like the farthest of several lines going to Shin-Osaka, and it took quite a while to get there.

We came across the Nara Line on the opposite side.

I saw quite a few negative comments about Osaka online, especially saying that areas around Namba and Shinsaibashi can be a bit dirty and chaotic. We didn’t go to Shinsaibashi on this trip and mainly stayed around Umeda, which we found very clean and pleasant. Hopefully I’ll still have the same good impression the next time I visit.

Setting off for the next stop: Hakone!

About the Author

This article is reposted from the WeChat public account of a reader from our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food, Drinks, and Fun. The articles are all original and well worth reading, so if you’re interested, feel free to follow the account.

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