We decided to take things easy and explore the surroundings on the 2nd day. RJ also needed to recover from severe lack of sleep the night before.We decided to make a trip to the Past and Present Museum and then travel down towards Namba. Realised that the apartment is situated in a really accessible place as it is walking distance to 4 train stations on various lines.
- Daikokucho Station - Subway
- Ebisucho Station - Subway
- Shin-Imamiya Station - Nankai, Subway, JR
- Imamiyaebisu Station - Nankai
We took the subway to Tenjimbashisujirokuchome Station (we massacred the word) then spent quite abit of time wandering around the streets and trying to locate The Osaka Museum of Housing and Living (aka Past and Present Museum) which looks like this
until we realised that its actually a re-created street on the 8th floor of a very corporate looking building (So Noobb!!) Here's the top down view, the 'sky' can transit from dawn to dusk and vice versa. (So cool!)
Entrance fee is 600yen and an additional 2-300yen got us kimono rental so that we can pretend to be Edo-eraians. The kimono rental are rented by time slots, so the best is to go straight to the kimono rental once you arrive at the museum. We got a time slot that was more than 1 hour later. We were there so long that we experienced 4 dawns and dusks. The good thing? You can bring home the tabi socks.
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| Kimono Rental - transforming you from present to past! |
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| Day Time |
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| Night Time |
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| Day time again! |
The 'transistion to present' section is on the next level and i loved the miniatures. Small things are so cute ^_^
After the museum, we detoured into a ramen shop tucked along a sheltered shopping street that had some sort of Abura Soba. We fed money to the ticket machine and selected the ramen picture that we loved, gave our orders to the lady behind the counter and tada!!
The mysterious spicy level choice we had to make turned out to be some sort of 'mala' oil/spice etc. In any case, it was SO GOOD. I might have been too hungry but it was seriously yummy. And the karaage is the grandfather of all karaages. This meal deserves another photo.
We then went on to look for the Gudetama Cafe at HEP Five.
RJ's current fav Sanrio character - the lazy egg who lacks the energy to do anything and is resigned to being eaten. LoOL! This mentality doesn't only apply to eggs, agree?
We were too full so we only ordered a parfait, it was nothing to rave about but it was fun taking pictures of Gudetama.
HEP Five is a shopping mall with fashionable clothing and quite alot of resturants and a Ferris wheel. I seem to remember the food more than the clothing haha. But that's just me. We popped into the Disney store and i had to take pictures of these because they were just so KAWAIIIIiiiiiii
We headed down to Shinsaibashi and Dotonburi for more shopping and dinner. Shinsaibashi = Shopping and food street, lots and lots of people. Look at the crowd right across the road at Shinsaibashi-suji. If this was a zombie movie, I'll be gone in 3 seconds.
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| Shinsaibashi-suji |
There are just too many things to look at and to shop at here! We got lost in the mega Daiso store - 108yen (with 8% tax) for almost every item. Converted to S$, that's $1.34. In Singapore, each item would cost $2. So i decided to try some of the Daiso polymer clay which weighed 30g each.
After that we went along with the flow of people moving towards Dotonburi.
We had planned to have a late dinner at Kani Douraku (this giant crab resturant) however, they were no longer accepting walk in diners by the time we arrived at 10.30pm. So i comforted myself by attempting to take a picture with the signage. After 4 attempts to capture the picture without any passerby, i gave up..
On the way back to the apartment, we spotted these cutesy road blocks. Drivers also need some Sanrio cuteness to perk them up!!
