Osaka

I threw all of my luggage in a locker and hopped on a train with my friends to Osaka for a few days. Insanely convenient. One of the main shopping streets in Osaka had this roofed street but the floors made it seem like an outdoor mall. We wandered the main streets but it was so crowded so we found this crab Kaiseki. (Traditional multi course meal) It included a personal Shabu Shabu (hotpot) and matcha affogato as well as a whole crab.

After lunch we split up and I went to the aquarium. Never been to one and I'd heard about this one before. There was a shopping center next to it with an animal petting zoo.

The aquarium had a large tank in the middle of the entire place and you just walked a spiral around it. They even had an area where there were hardly any barriers for penguins and seals.

After the aquarium we had reservations to see the Teamlab in Osaka. This one was outdoors and at night only. It was very interesting to be at a nice Japanese park in the middle of the night. I don't think I had to forethought to setup my camera for low light shooting. The one where it looked like it was writing with light in the trees was really outstanding. You can walk and wander as there's no set path as opposed to Teamlab Planets being completely linear.

My friends got to try their first fluffy pancake at this cute cafe in the park afterwards. We then went back to the main streets of Osaka again to get some street food and got some Yakisoba and Takoyaki. Then we randomly found a large Izakaya(bar/pub) by our hotel that had a tablet to order from which made things so much easier.

The next day was pretty busy for me as it was basically my last day in Japan. I hit up this highly rated Okonomiyaki spot before it opened and was like the 30th person in line. Since the doors had just opened they immediately had to make a full house of Okonomiyakis. I even got to watch them make two Hiroshima style ones. The line when I left was even longer.

Went to this animal cafe and got to pet these animals that I'd never get a chance to like this capybara. There was even a pig just walking around with the dogs and cats. There were multiple floors, lots of employees and very clean.

I spent most of the day in Osaka walking around looking for particular souvenirs and to their version of Akihabara. Then I met up with my friends again and had ramen at this spot where I later saw on a Korean Variety show. We went to Kura Sushi afterwards to grab a few more small plates.

Very late at night we hit up the Round 1 and was pretty surprised how unsupervised and janky everything was. It was a lot of fun though and I could imagine hanging out there all the time as a teenager or college student.

So I considered taking the night sleeper train but found out in my research that it actually took like over an hour longer to get to Tokyo because it took a less intrusive route. I decided to just get another manga cafe and stay in there until the morning trains opened up. This place had actual rooms with locks if you wanted to leave your stuff and go in and out.

Back to Hong Kong where I had a pretty rough layover because nothing was open at night and there weren't even vending machines or water fountains. Had to wait until morning for food. The inflight meals made having go to Hong Kong kind of worth it. Everything on Cathay Airlines tasted good. They even ran out of their Asian meal options and only had western meals left and even that was really good.