Oishii! – Japan Day 02

Our second day in Japan! This would be our first full day in the Land of the Rising Sun, and we would capitalise quickly, as we woke up to our hotel’s complimentary breakfast(!) I was surprised as typically Japanese hotels do not include such luxuries like free breakfast in the price of the rooms. To our pleasant surprise, the breakfast quality was of excellent standard, and also included free drinks such as sodas and other hot beverages. However, this did not satisfy our insatiable desire for Japanese food, so we were soon on the prowl for one of the places that SF had researched before hand.

For our early lunch adventure, we headed to Tempura Daikichi, a small shop just next to Osaka Station. This took us a bit of time to find, as the Japanese train system is not very friendly to newcomers. For instance, there are two Osaka train stations, that are definitely not the same. However, find it we did, and we were immediately taken to a world of the finest Tempura we have ever tried before. The batter was light and the taste of the ebi was simply fresh and magnificent. Take into account that the price was also decent for the quality of food that we were presented with, and we had a great time having lunch in the area.

Next, we headed off for our day adventure, heading to DenDen Town for our fill of nerdy and geeky things that Japan has to offer, stopping first at Daiso to get some essentials for the trip ahead, also getting a cute sweater for Ashley.

 

We spent the entire day in the area, mostly filled with me geeking out over the large choice of exclusive and interesting electronics that were on offer in various shops. The most interesting one was definitely Sofmap, which sold some of the rarest Mechanical Keyboards that I have ever seen, with choices including HHKBs and Leopolds in ready quantities. Before we headed off to our next location, we also took the time to get a snack of Taiyaki, unfortunately without our favourite Custard flavour.  Afterwards, we headed towards Yodobashi, where we took the chance to take in a change of scenery, and also another chance to experience to efficiency of Japanese public transport. We also got a glance of the HEP5 Ferris Wheel.

 

Afterwards, we headed back to Dotonbori, where we took some time discovering the various shops, where we also stopped by Takashimaya, which was on our way back from the train station, seeing that they had so much food also on offer there, ranging from fried snacks to full rice bowls to takeaway. However, as dinner was fast approaching, we decided not to get anything for now, although everything looked so equally tempting.  Afterwards, we also stopped by Rikuro, a shop that sells cheesecakes that jiggle when they are taken out of the oven. We would have to wait to get to eat it, as we were heading off to dinner first, but we were very excited by the prospect!

 

For dinner, we headed to Yakiniku M, one of the most famous yakiniku shops in Osaka. As the precursor to our final beef destination, it was certainly something to whet our appetite before our highlight beef tour at the end of our trip, at Takayama.

When the beef appeared, it looked certainly amazing, and it did not disappoint in terms of quality, the beef was tender and flavourful, with a good amount of marbling on every piece. It was hard to imagine beef of a higher quality, although I am constantly reminded of me saying this fact prematurely, the true beef heaven was to come…

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by Round 1 Entertainment centre, which was marked with a huge bowling pin, unfortunately it did not sell any interesting bowling supplies, instead focusing on fun bowling. However it was certainly a picture to remember, standing next to such a huge bowling pin.

 

At the hotel, we were finally able to dig into our dessert, our Rikuro cheesecake, which was so soft and tasty. It had a light cheese flavour, and was more like a sponge cake in texture. However, we all loved it, and decided that we would also try their Swiss Roll cake before we left Osaka, as that also looked extremely delicious.