Part 9 Japan 🇯🇵 Osaka

Mo. 13.04.2026

Arrival in Osaka / Sightseeing

As always, we continued today with far too little sleep. We left Kyoto around 8 o'clock and took a regular local train for about 40 minutes to Osaka.

As usual, we dropped our luggage at the hotel and set out to sightsee.

Our hotel borders on the retro district Shinsekai. We quickly checked it out, along with the associated 100-meter-high Tsutenkaku Tower from the outside.

It was only at the Abeno Harukas building, which at 300 meters is the second tallest building in Japan, that we really went high. Of course, we went up to the 60th floor and had a truly beautiful 360-degree panoramic view of Osaka with its many mountains.

Not far away was the Buddhist Shi-Tennoji Temple with its 5-story pagoda, turtle pond, and overall beautiful grounds.

We then took the train to the Namba Yasaka Shrine. This was quite an extraordinary and unique Shinto shrine with an unbelievably huge lion's head.

From there it was not far to the most famous and unofficial center of Osaka, the Dotonbori district. We spent the late afternoon and early evening here.

We walked through the quirky streets full of giant and funny figures on the building walls, many shops, food stalls, and much more.

We also took a little boat ride on the canal.

Then we thought it was about time to eat one of the famous Kobe steaks. The price of €20 was very good for such an exclusive steak. Well, that was a disappointment. It was no better than an ordinary steak and also really small. I guess we’ll have to dig a bit deeper into our pockets next time.

We checked in a little earlier at the Toho Hotel Ebisu. The room was a tiny bit larger, and there were two proper beds, not another uncomfortable sofa bed.

We hoped for a bit more sleep, but we were behind with photos and the blog, so it didn’t turn out to be much earlier than usual.