Japan 🇯🇵 - Osaka

Tips 👏

• Book your Osaka Castle tickets online in advance to skip the long queue, or directly in the queue if you're feeling lucky. The inside of Osaka Castle is a modern museum, so don't expect an authentic ancient interior (but the park is great).
• Skip the Umeda Sky Building; it was packed, the queue was huge, and it honestly wasn't worth the hype. For a better view and a much classier vibe, go to the Conrad Hotel for drinks instead.
• The Sumo Experience Namba is interesting to see live, but it felt a bit overpriced for what it was and definitely not authentic.

Accommodation 🏠

We stayed at the Ostay Shin-Osaka Hotel Apartment, which was a practical base for the trip. It's an apartment-style setup without breakfast, but it was clean and convenient. It’s located near Shin-Osaka station, making it easy to hop on the train and explore the city.

Getting there 🚲

Osaka is incredibly connected by subway, which is how we got around for 90% of the trip. We commuted to Namba and the aquarium easily using the local lines. We booked few taxis using GO Taxi (super popular), but not the most effective as the city is big with traffic.

Duration ⏱

We stayed for two days and two nights (Sunday to Monday), which felt like enough time to hit the major highlights without feeling too rushed.

Ocean Giants & Sumo 🐋

We started our Sunday morning at the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. It is a massive facility and seeing the whale sharks and mantas was definitely a highlight. We initially planned to do the ferry wheel attached to it but when realizing it was 120m I chickened out. After working up an appetite, we grabbed lunch at the nearby mall before heading into the city center.

We commuted over to Namba for the afternoon to catch a Sumo Show at the Sumo Experience Namba. It was quite cool to see the wrestling live and understand the rituals, but I have to say it felt a bit overpriced for the experience, and felt much more like a tourist trap. But we couldn't catch any real sumo tournaments, so better than nothing.

The evening was spent wandering through the neon-lit streets of Namba, mixing with the crowds and stopping in random shops. We finished the night in true Osaka style with a delicious Okonomyiaki at a local spot. Nothing to write a book about however compared to the ones in Hiroshima.

Castles, Street Food & Retro Vibes 🏯

The next morning was dedicated to Osaka Castle. When we saw the massive line we almost abandoned, but we managed to book tickets on the spot on the website and saved two hours of queue. The castle tower itself is actually a modern museum on the inside with an elevator, which was a bit disappointing if you are looking for authentic history, but the surrounding park is beautiful and a great place to walk around.

For lunch, we headed back to Namba to dive into the street food scene. We tried a bit of everything, including melt-in-your-mouth Wagyu beef skewers and some top-tier tuna sashimi at the Kuromon Ichiba Market.

After lunch, we walked to Shinsekai to soak up the retro Osaka atmosphere. It has a nostalgic, almost cinematic vibe that is 100% worth seeing. Actually gutted we couldn't stay longer!

The Best and Worst views 🍸

We took the tube to the Umeda Sky Building for sunset, but it was a letdown. The queues were long and the observation deck was packed.

We saved the night with dinner at Moon and Back Hep Five, where we had some fantastic vegan ramen which is quite rare (normal options also available). We then took a taxi to the Conrad. The view from their lounge is absolutely stunning (miles better than the Sky Building) and was the perfect way to say goodbye to the city (bit pricey but worth it)

Hope this was helpful, you can ask us any questions on Instagram.