Blog - Osaka #2: Nanba

Osaka #2: Nanba

After a short flight of about an hour, we arrived at Kansai International Airport on Friday mid-afternoon and then took the Rapi:t express train to Nanba, downtown Osaka. Announcements in the train actually said it's "Rapi:t β"... as a programmer I don't find it very reassuring to ride on a beta train. :)

We went to check-in at our hotel located in Kita-Horie, near Yotsubashi station, and then headed to Boulangerie P & B (2-6-15 Kita-Horie, 06-6534-2601), a small bakery with just a handful of different breads. The cream cheese bagel (baked with cream cheese inside) was very good! I'm not saying that just because the shop has my initials. :)

A little further we found an Osaka grocery store called Tamade. This chain has daily ¥1 sales in every store! Anyway what got my interest is that it looked like a pachinko with all the neons and mirrors. After some more walking we also bought some cakes at Mon chou chou.K (Minami-Horie 3-1-24), famous for its Dōjima roll cake which was sold out.

After a quick stop at the hotel to drop the bread, we were starting to get hungry and headed back to Dōtonbori, a shopping street in Nanba, for some food. There we had our first takoyaki of the trip at Kukuru (1-10-7 Dōtonbori), after which we went for some udon at Imai (1-7-22 Dōtonbori) located nearby the famous Kuidaore-ningyō. This one was recommended to us by friends p&art sasanoooha.

Still having a bit of room for more, we had more takoyaki at the nearby Honke Ōtako (1-5-11 Dōtonbori) whose sign claims that they have the best (of course they all do). Dōtonbori has also a bunch of essential tourists spots, such as the Glico neon running man, Kani-dōraku's huge crab and the Kuidaore ningyō.
For some reason, Glico's giant animated ad was turned off the night we got there. Perhaps it's only on on weekend or something? At least there was a smaller version to be found in the arcade.

On the way back towards the hotel, we strolled through Nanba's large underground shopping network and ate some delicious mango mixed shaved ice at 9988, a famous shop from Taiwan. The shop is located in Nanba Walk 1 North.