Friday, January 20, 2024

• Here’s where things will get a little loose for this blog – Nara was the last time I recorded a journal entry during the trip, so everything else will be a combination of memories and the photos we took. I’m likely to forget things, but these are the things that stood out most strongly to me.
• After another excellent Nara buffet breakfast, we packed up, checked out, and train’d our way over to Osaka.

• We were staying in the Namba Oriental Hotel, which is part of the covered mall around Dotonbori. It was such a fun place to stay, right in the heart of the city, and immediately jumped to the top of my list of best hotels this trip.

• First order of business after checking in was to go for a walk around to get the lay of the land and find something for eats. We found a nice sushi place and sampled a few of their delights, including a wagyu course.

• In our subsequent walk around the area, we found the local kitchen goods alley, complete with a robot roaming freely up and down the street covered in advertising hoardings.

• We also spend some time exploring a Don Quixote store, and were dismayed to find out just how much cheaper spirits were here than back home…

• Went back to the hotel to unpack and rest, then went out for a walk and to find something for dinner.

• We couldn’t decide what we felt like most for dinner, so we found a place filled with students enjoying cheap and tasty eats, including a lot of Osaka’s best known specialty dishes. It was a chaotic atmosphere, but great beer, cheap and delicious food, and a server who asked where we were from, then was able to talk at length about our football team was a highlight!