Osaka: USJ, Dontonbori & Glico Man

Osaka is the third largest city and also one of the most visited places in Japan despite being hours away from Tokyo. With its rich food and drinking culture, vast underground malls and many beautiful tourist spots make sure to not miss out putting Osaka in your itinerary. Osaka is also near the previous capital of Japan, Kyoto making people visit these two cities consecutively.

On our way to Osaka — We’re off to Osaka at exactly 12am. This time Ian and his father will be driving for us. We opted for a car drive instead of riding the plane or the train though both will be faster but it will be more costly compared to a car drive. Ian will drive for the youngsters and his father for the tanders (we called ourselves like that while in Japan to group ourselves). We bought some snacks and coffee first before we left since it will be a 6 hour drive from Kawasaki to Osaka. We were all energetic and singing at first! But we all end up sleeping I really felt sorry for Ian that day T.T I really tried not to sleep but its so dark and were driving on what seems to be an endless highway, I just cant help it. We ate, slept, woke up and Hello Osakaaaaaa!

Universal Studios Japan – Our first stop in Osaka was USJ! Unfortunately, like how the highway won’t seem to end same goes for the ticket lane in USJ too.. We went there at December 26 and its still holiday in Japan, I guess many were out to have fun. We plan to visit Osaka and Kyoto in two days so we don’t have that much time to spend. So, we just took a picture with the famous Globe and roamed around a bit and left.

Dontonbori – This place has so much to offer! From food, photo zones to clothing. Wherever you look you can spot a place to eat and the exterior of these restaurant are just so fancy! Look at this photo of my parents with a big crab there and my dad trying to imitate a crab’s pincer. Now if you think you need more clothes, my cousin told me that the clothes they offer are really cheap and take note I saw it and they are all pretty.  Since we haven’t had a proper meal for that day and its almost lunch time, we decided to eat in Dontonburi one of the tourist spots in Osaka. While looking for a proper restaurant where we can eat rice, we first ate takoyaki to lessen our hunger.

Takoyaki means tako = octopus and yaki = fried so its fried octopus in English. It was different! I always wonder why do people in the drama love takoyaki that much but when I tried it here in Philippines it wasn’t that delicious! But I finally understand when I tried it! It was really flavorful and it melts in your mouth! You can taste the octopus on it and even though it was so hot, you won’t stop eating!

We had our lunch just across the Takoyaki stall, and the serving is really more than enough I really can’t finish it but we have to finish it because leaving some leftover will mean it was not delicious and will make the chef sad. So even with full stomach I tried my best to finish it.

Just looking at this cheese tart will make you drool for it. It was really tasty it wasn’t so sweet nor hard, it was salty and sweet at the same time and its really soft. It was telling me to eat more and more. We actually found a cheese tart stall also in Asakusa and we were expecting that it will taste like the one is Osaka but it wasn’t, so make sure that you try the cheese tart in Osaka.

Glico Man – Or in English Running Man, I’ve seen many Korean idols take pictures here like Jung Joon Young, Ravi from VIXX, Hani from EXID and I bet there’s a lot more. So I really wanted to visit this photo zone area. I don’t really know why it was popular so I asked my cousin who lives in Japan and he doesn’t know why too.

It was sad that we weren’t able to have fun inside Universal Studios Japan and explore The Wizarding World of Harry Potter so we definitely need to go back for it someday. Plus! I recently became a fan of NCT and watched their NCT Life in Osaka another reason why I want to go back to Osaka. I want to try the Yuta Tour Itinerary!