Japan Honeymoon: Osaka 2-day Itinerary
Welcome back to part 2 of my Japan Honeymoon series, where I write about everything we did, what we ate, and where we stayed during our 3 week trip to Japan.
We spent our first 3 days in Tokyo where we spent a lot of time and money shopping and eating. In this blog post, I will write about how we spent our 2 days in Osaka!
Osaka is a large and popular city in Japan roughly 2.5 hrs away from Tokyo via bullet train. Osaka is known for its abundance of yummy street food, Osaka Castle and Universal Studios Japan. Over the years, I find Osaka to be a frequent spot travelers want to go to during their time in Japan.
This is my second time visiting Osaka so there may be places I have already visited that I do not want to again, or touristy attractions that I am avoiding this time because we are here for our honeymoon and we want it to be kind of relaxing/romantic โบ๏ธ. We also met up with some friends in Osaka and our group included 2 children under 5 years old, so our activities were also mindful of this.
Japan Honeymoon trip 2024 recap
Tokyo | Osaka
Day 4: Arrival to Osaka
Today we are checking out of our hotel in Takadanobaba area of Shinjuku and traveling to Osaka.
Brunch: 10ยฐ Cafe
After we checked out of our hotel in Takadanobaba, we looked for a cafรฉ to have brunch. We ended up at 10ยฐ Cafe, a quiet and unassuming cafรฉ that actually had more floors if you go upstairs. Most of the other customers looked like students with their laptops.
We ordered a french toast with salad that came with a small pumpkin soup and 2 beverages – iced coffee and an iced latte. The drinks were a bit watered down, but the meal was light and yummy despite its humble appearance.
Transportation: Bullet train to Osaka
This is not our first time traveling by bullet train around Japan. Even in the past, we never purchased the JR pass because it just wasn’t worth the price based on our itinerary. Now that prices for JR pass have increased, it is even more not-worth-it ๐.
We arrived at Tokyo Station and there was a huge lineup to purchase tickets via a counter/real person. We noticed that the machines had no lines so we fumbled around until we were able to purchase our own bullet train tickets to Osaka. It was quite confusing at first, but after while we were able to figure it out.
Tickets costed us $133 per person for a total of $266. We selected non-reserved, which is the cheapest option and made our way to the platform and onto the correct train.
I recommend you all to select a reserved seat and train. I thought maybe non-reserved would be fine because we were traveling on a weekday, but it was still quite busy and actually there weren’t 2 seats together in the non-reserved trains so we had to stand for a few stops until some folks got off. It was kind of awkward because we had 2 large suitcases with us.
Once we found 2 available seats, the rest of the train ride was lovely and quiet. I have always been very impressed with the cleanliness and comfort of Japan’s bullet trains – lots of leg room and space for you to rest ๐.
Accommodations: Sotetsu Grand Fresa Osaka Namba
We stayed at the Sotetsu Grand Fresca Osaka Namba for 2 nights and just chose the cheapest room at $85 a night. This was probably the smallest room we stayed in during our whole trip, but we were generally ok with it because the location was awesome – only a 7 minute walk to the Dotonbori area.
Everything else was pretty standard with grab your own amenities, a double bed, washroom etc. The biggest pain point was just not enough space to open our luggage comfortably.
Shopping: Osaka Shinsekai
After checking into our hotel, the first we did was check out an area called Osaka Shinsekai. Shinsekai means “new world” but this area is actually super retro. It was developed before the war and then basically ignored after so the entire district is quite nostalgic with small shops and market alleyways.
My husband had a streetwear store here that he really wanted to shop at called After Note.
The rest of the area was mostly closed when we arrived around 4:30pm – too bad!
Explore: Den Den City
After leaving Shinsekai, we walked and explored Den Den City. It is similar to Tokyo’s Akihabara, filled with stores selling electronics, toys and collector items.
Here we met up with our friends and looked at some Anime figurine and toy stores.
Snack: Kukuru Takoyaki
Night time and dinnertime was approaching, so we walked from Den Den town back to to popular Dotonbori area. It was bustling with people, smells of delicious street food, and giant store fronts with exciting food attractions.
I returned back to the takoyaki place that I ate at the last time I was in Osaka – Kukuru. They have a giant octopus in front of their stall and they make it right in front of you.
We ordered a regular takoyaki 8 pcs for $10. I saw they have a bunch of different flavours and toppings, but some of them definitely seemed targeted to tourists with things like avocado, cheese, etc. We prefer just the original with bonito flakes and okonomiyaki sauce and mayo.
Kukuru has seating inside, but since we just wanted a quick snack and also had 2 strollers, we just ate on the street at a nearby bench.
Dinner: Robatayaki Mizukakechaya
I was influenced by some reel on Instagram and really wanted to have an izakaya-style dinner inside Hozenji Yokocho. This is a small alleyway in Dotonbori filled with small pubs and restaurants!
The izakaya I was specifically looking for was called Robatayaki Mizukakechaya. Robatayaki means “fireside cooking”. They feature a lot of different food on skewers cooked slow-grilled over hot charcoal.
The restaurant is quite small but it has 4 levels! Almost every floor has this type of bar/counter seating where you sit in front of the grill and watch the cooks grill your food. I was hoping for this experience (despite the smell would get on my clothes ๐ฃ), but since we had 2 children, they actually gave us a private room on the top floor. It had AC, a karaoke machine (you have to pay though ๐), and we ordered food through a menu/ipad and they delivered it upstairs with a little elevator/laundry chute thing.
Since we were in a large group setting, I wasn’t really in food blogging mode and we basically just went ham ordering whatever we wanted. Here are some of the dishes we ordered:
The food was good but compared to Japan level, I feel like there are many izakayas that could be better. Some exceptional items I tried include:
- Grilled fish – these were the best! So flaky, moist and had a smokiness to it
- Sashimi – cheap and fresh
- Skewers – grilled really well
I think overall, their skewer and grilled fish were the most delicious since it is what they specialize in.
Prices were very reasonable – we ordered so many rounds of sake because they were only $1-3 per sake glass. Grand total for 6 adults and 2 kids including all our alcohol was $272 = $45 per person ๐คฏ!
Activity: Round1 Arcade
After dinner and feeling buzzed from all the sake, we went to Round1 Arcade to win some toys for the kids and take sticky photos (beware… what is seen cannot be unseen ๐ฑ).
We also played some darts and ping pong – very cheap!
Late night snack: Melon pan and McDonald’s
We are now in the AMs and we are not sober ๐ฅด. During our walk back to the hotel, we stopped for some late night snacks because they looked so good!
The first was this melon pan/bread with ice cream that cost $6 – really yummy and a nice dessert. The giant melon pan was also fun to watch as it opened and closed above the stall.
Next we stopped by a McDonald’s because I absolutely love the ebi/shrimp burger in Japan! I really wish they had it here in Vancouver. It definitely satisfied my late night craving and it was only $7 for the ebi filet-o meal.
Day 5: Universal Studios Japan
Today is the (dreaded) day at Universal Studios Japan. I say dreaded because we already knew it would be a day of sweating, walking, and standing in line for hours ๐.
The last time we were in Japan, we visited Tokyo Disney Sea and although we had fun, it was such an exhausting day. The Japanese people love to queue and you can expect over 1 hour waits for popular rides. The last time we were at a Universal Studios was in Singapore and at that time, we all purchased an express/fast pass ticket which saved us loads of time and we were able to essentially explore the entire park.
This time, however, we still had a 4-year old child in our group and we wanted to spend time with him so we opted not to purchase the fast pass because it’s not like he can go on the adult rides anyways. So we bought the regular adult pass to Universal Studios Japan for $87 per person.
The crowd already started during the commute to Universal Studios. The platform was filled with people at 8:30am ๐. We were also feeling pretty dehydrated from last night, and we bought this lemon hangover drink from 711 to save us.
Activity: Universal Studios Japan
The first thing we did when we arrived at Universal Studios Japan after entering the gates was to download the app and reserve our entrance time to enter the Super Nintendo World area. Without reserving your admission, you are not even allowed to enter the area, regardless of if you plan on going on zero rides.
Once we got in, it was definitely super cool ๐คฉ! Everything was built to life size and the movements and animations were really fun to see.
However, my excitement didn’t last very long because there wasn’t a lot of thrilling rides in this area (i.e. no roller coasters). And I didn’t feel like waiting 30-40 minutes to sit on Yoshi’s ride, which is essentially you get to sit and view the Nintendo world in the scorching sun (very boring and very hot ๐ฅต). The Bowser’s ride already had a 1 hour wait.
Most of the other attractions required a wristband that you need to pay for to play mini-games. I also didn’t want to spend this money on the wristband so mostly this Nintendo area was just for photo ops and if you want to eat at the Toad Mushroom cafรฉ.
We decided to leave Super Nintendo World and we left the kid with his parents to visit the Jurassic World area. We lined up 40 minutes for the The Flying Dinosaur ride, which was a roller coaster where your feet dangle off. I felt this ride was quite fun and 40 minutes wait was not too bad.
We also had an early lunch at the One Piece restaurant where we got a Luffy set meal for around $20 ๐. Expensive but since we were stuck inside Universal Studios Japan, I didn’t expect any cheap eats. The food was actually not too bad – the roast beef was not dry.
After that, we visited the Hello Kitty and Sesame Street area known as Universal Wonderland. This area is definitely more catered towards smaller children. We saw a parade, went on Hello Kitty teacup ride twice (line was short) and spent some time in the indoor area where there was AC, ball pits and slides for smaller kids and toddlers.
After having some fun time with our nephew, it was time to eat a quick lunch at Snoopy’s Backlot Cafe. This is now lunchtime and there are lineups to buy food. We ate some pasta and french fries.
We left shortly after lunch to catch the water show at Water World. This was a fun show and you get to sit (thank god ๐ ) but I will note that the entire show is in Japanese so if you don’t have several years of anime-watching behind you, you may have zero idea what is going on with the storyline of the show. Like our nephew was super confused.
Lastly, we entered the Harry Potter area and it was kinda funny because they try to make it look like winter in this area with snow on the rooftops of Hogsmeade or whatever and there are Japanese people wearing Harry Potter cloaks (they like to dress up for the parks), but I am still sweating buckets.
This area is really cool and I especially liked the landscape of Hogwarts in the background – very beautiful and realistic ๐คฉ!
Our nephew fell asleep so we lined up 180 minutes for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride. We died waiting for this ride… it was so painful ๐ญ. This is a motion-based ride and it was pretty cool except near the end, the ride suddenly stopped due to some issue and it kind of ruined the experience because all the lights came on and I could see all the projections and mechanics of the ride.
Luckily, they offered us another free ride and we took it because hey… we waited 180 minutes so riding it twice made it seem like a better deal.
After riding this, we realize the nephew had woken up from his nap and was not having a good time. And actually, none of us were having a good time anymore either because our feet hurt, we were sweaty and tired, and we wanted to get the fuck out of Universal Studios ๐.
We all went back to our hotels and died for a few hours.
Dinner: Hozenji Sanpei
After awaking from a quick nap, I put on my nasty same-day outfit again (shut up… I want to limit how many times I do the laundry ๐) and went for an early dinner at an okonomiyaki spot since Osaka is known for okonomiyaki.
Okonomiyaki is like a savoury pancake and they prepare it for you on a grill with different toppings of your choice.
Loewe’s rating: โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ
Hozenji Sanpei
1 Chome-7-10 Dotonbori, Chuo Ward, Osaka, 542-0071, Japan
Recommended: Read my full review of Houzenji Sanpei, a popular okonomiyaki spot in the Dotonbori area of Osaka.
Dinner: Zauo Fishing Restaurant
While staying at our hotel, we noticed there was a familiar restaurant located right underneath our hotel – Zauo Fishing Restaurant.
I’ve seen and heard of this restaurant before on social media. You can catch your own fish and they can prepare it for you ๐ฃ. It wasn’t really high on our list of priority restaurants to check out, but since it was right underneath our restaurant, we decided to squeeze in 2 dinners seeing this was our last night in Osaka. So we had a light okonomiyaki dinner at Hozenji Sanpei, and then we walked back to our hotel to catch a fish and eat it.
We had no reservation but the restaurant is actually really big inside B1 (basement) and they were able to seat us right away, but not at a table that had view of the “water”.
We chose to fish a sea bream and they are already netted into an area for you. Depending on the type of fish and size, the price varies. But their menu boasts that if you can catch your own fish, it will be slightly cheaper.
It was actually not easy to fish ๐ฏ! There is no bait, so you kind of just hook your fishing rod into the fishes’ cheeks. This causes the fish the flap around and splash a bunch of nasty water on you (my prada bag!!! ๐). It really is a two-person job because the second person has to be quick with a net to just scoop up the fish the second the hook catches on.
After you catch your fish, you can tell them to prepare it in 2 different ways. We chose sashimi style and also deep fried style.
It was pretty fun and felt satisfying to eat the fish we “caught” ๐. The sashimi style was prepared quite nicely with the fish head and everything, but taste-wise I did prefer the deep fried style. Mostly, I was happy that the fish we caught was large enough to cook it 2 ways! We originally wanted to catch a mackerel because it was the cheapest (we already ate a first dinner) but upon looking at how small they were, we decided on the sea bream instead.
Our total for our second dinner here at Zauo was around $56 and this included our fish cooked 2 ways and also 2 beverages.
After our second dinner, we went back upstairs to our hotel and rested because it was certainly an exhausting day!
Final thoughts
Our time in Osaka was certainly no less busy than our time in Tokyo!
The best part of Osaka, in my opinion, is that we got to spend it with some friends and our sister/nephew ๐ฅฐ. I always find it more fun when we get to enjoy our vacation with other people. The rest of the trip was mostly my husband and I only. I guess it is our honeymoon though!
I think Osaka definitely has a different vibe from Tokyo. I really loved the street food and the late night drinking culture in Osaka. In Tokyo/Shinjuku there was also a lot of drinking but there were more people sleeping on the streets and in garbage bags.
I have a lot of thoughts about Universal Studios Japan and even other amusement parks like Disneyland/Disney Sea. My opinions mostly stem around the I-would-not-visit-again just because it is so tiring and hot and the long waits for rides are just not worth it ๐. I would only recommend you to go if you purchase the fast pass/express passes or if you are solely happy with just taking photos inside the park areas.
Stay tuned for my next travel recap as we leave Tokyo and travel to Osaka!
Sincerely, Loewe
Japan Honeymoon trip 2024 recap
Tokyo | Osaka