OSAKA!!!

Irasshai masen! You’ll hear all over town, from the cheap ramen shop to a five star restaurant, the Japanese greeting welcomes you to this fun and exciting city, Osaka!




Osaka City View

Osaka is a vibrant city, known for its cuisine. There is a Japanese saying that says: In Tokyo you shop, in Osaka you eat. In every corner there is an eatery, with the freshest fish you have ever eaten. From sushi to tongue twisting okonomiyake, the food is amazing in Osaka.

I have three favorite meals when I go to Osaka. The first one is gyudon, which is a Japanese poor man’s meal. Gyudon restaurants are all over the place, and the two most common chains are Yoshinoya and Matsuya. You can have a meal composed of rice, beef, soup, salad and green tea for around 5 bucks. It’s an unbeatable deal.




Matsuya Gyudon Restaurant

Another favorite are the kaiten sushi restaurants, which is the conveyor belt of happiness that brings you different kinds of sushi and sashimi constantly. All made fresh. These types of restaurants are becoming popular in the US, but going to one in Japan is a great experience.




Kaiten Sushi

When going to Osaka, make sure you visit the pocket restaurants and bars. They are tiny places that usually specialize in one kind of food: sushi, yakitori, okonomiyake, etc. The one in the picture below prepared an Osaka style tempura that was perfect beer food. The cool thing about these places is that you can go hopping from one to another trying different foods.




Pocket Restaurant

If you are on the run in Osaka, make sure you try two great snacks that are very Japanese. Stop by a local convenience store, called konbini in Japanese. There is literally on in every corner. Konbinis sell one of my favorite Japanese foods, omusubis. An omusubi is a triangular rice cake with some sort of filling. I like to get the chicken with mayo and the salmon omusubi. They cost about one dollar and two will fill you up. Cheap, authentic and healthy. Stop by a vending machine on your way out of the konbini and buy some Calpis water, in my opinion the most Japanese of the thousands of soft drinks sold in Japan.





Omusubis inside a Konbini




Vending machines found everywhere in Osaka.

Osaka is filled with great spots to check out. Make sure you go to Shinsaibashi which is their equivalent to New York’s Times square.




Shinsaibashi, Osaka’s Times Square

Shinsaibashi is also a shopping district, with thousands of stores. The streets are covered so you can shop even while it rains. Stop by a Lotteria Burger and have a Japanese version of the Big Mac.




Shinsaibashi shopping district




Lotteria Burger

Another cool thing to do in Osaka is get a hair cut. At The Cut, you can get a cut for 1000 yen, about 10 bucks. The cool thing is that you will have your head vacuumed once the hair dresser is done. Japanese hair dressers are very good and creative, after all, most Japanese have basically the same hair, they need to be creative!




The Cut

If you have time, make sure you stop by Kobe which is a 30 minutes train ride away. Kobe is a gorgeous city, locked between the mountains and the ocean. It reminds me of Santa Barbara, CA. There is a great outlet mall if you want to go shopping, and the best part is the view you will have a view of the Kobe version of the Golden Gate bridge, the Akashi Kaikyo bridge, which is actually longer than it’s San Francisco counterpart.




Kobe




Akashi Kaikyo Bridge

Osaka is one of my favorite cities. It is a great place to do whatever, shop, eat, sightsee, or just walk around the streets and be entertained with the very unique Japanese way of living. Check it out for yourself, you’ll love it.