Leaving Tokyo I got a ticket for the shinkansen to Osaka. I didn’t get a window seat but no one were sitting at the window so I practically had it anyway. The weather was clear so we had a beautiful view of Fuji outside Tokyo. Unfortunately they didn’t show the speed of the train on the screens in the cabin so you never knew how fast exactly you were going. But the ride was so smooth (and acceleration was very obvious when leaving a station) so it never felt particularly fast. I want them to have an open carriage so you can sit outside and really get a feel of the speed!
Arriving in Osaka I changed to the subway and got off at my planned station. When I had finally waddled my way to the hotel with my bags and very sore legs I realized that had I gotten off at the station before I could have exited the station on the same block as the hotel. “Could have” is an important wording as the stations often have 20+ exits and because they span such large areas, if you don’t know the area it’s pretty easy to get confused when you exit about where you are.
The hotel here turns out to be a bit oddly located. I specifically didn’t go for a more expensive hotel in the center and neither a cheaper option on the city outskirts, but the one I ended with was nicely positioned in the middle and in comfortable walking distance from Dotonbori, an area recommended for tourists. It turns out the area is pretty fancy; directly across from the hotel there is a McLaren retailer, one block down a Lamborghini retailer, another block down a Ferrari one, and following that you’d find Roles, Dior, Georgio Armani etc. Definitely not a place you’d find the average riff-raff.
I rested my legs for a bit before going for a walk to the part of town called Dotonbori. It’s basically just a area with a large collection of eateries, restaurants, booths and whatnot on all streets and back alleys. Absolute chaos – it’s a popular place everybody goes to in the evening, apparently. Amidst it all I managed to find a place with no line and very nice ramen.
Returning to the hotel around 2000 I sat down
on the bed to do some reading which resulted in me waking up 2 hours later. I
decided that meant I ought to get ready to go to bed for real. I went to bed –
and woke up at 4 and concluded that I should probably also turn off all the
lights in the room before waking up another 2 hours later where I actually made
it up and turn off the lights before falling asleep again and slept for another
2 hours before finally waking up.
The following day I decided to aim for Osaka castle so obviously I didn’t find it at all and instead ended somewhere completely else. I had to circle around and diligently follow the map for me to finally arrive at my intended destination. A large green area with the castle – a single building – towering in the center surrounded by moats. The weather hadn’t really changed all day, unfortunately, so it kept being overcast, windy and with the occasionally shower so I didn’t hang around for long. After a break back at the hotel I returned to Dotonbori where I found some delicious Takoyaki (dumplings – similar to Danish æbleskiver but savory – with a piece of octopus and cheese in the center). I was also looking for some okonomiyaki (basically a thick cabbage pancake with various protein mixed in) but the places I found all had long queues outside that didn’t seem to be moving – and it was still raining. So I decided to skip that plan for now. Both Takoyaki and okonomiyaki are specialties of Osaka.
On the Wednesday – the 6th – I grabbed the shinkansen to Himeji as I was interested in seeing the Himeji castle, the largest castle in Japan. I thought it was quite beautiful and it was clearly very well maintained and a pride of the Japanese. It’s not just the castle itself but a larger area (and 3 main buildings) protected by the inner moat. I booked a 2-hour tour at 1300 and before that I went out to grab lunch at a place with Japanese curry; rice with a fried port cutlet (“pork katsu”) smothered in curry (but not like what you’d find in India but it’s distinctly Japanese). The tour brought us around and into the castle, but when entering we were to take off our shoes and put them in a bag we were handed. With no heating that was definitely a chilly affair. But walking around in the castle and getting stuff pointed out by our guide was really interesting. Reaching the upper levels the stairs turned narrow and steep – almost ladders – with very little headroom. When they built the castle back in the 1600’s they clearly didn’t have Westerners in mind. How inconsiderate.
After the tour I realized that it may not have been as necessary as I had thought; everyone had the same access as us and there were plenty of informational plaques spread out throughout the castle. Though it does add a bit having a guide, and on a daily basis there are only 2 English tours with 10 clients at most each time, so I was still glad that I had made it.
I did a quick walk around the castle grounds before returning to the train station and taking the shinkansen to Kobe. As I was a bit early for my dinner reservation I had a walk around the main station area. I don’t think I have ever seen this many steak and meat restaurants gathered in one place. Not even in Argentina. It was beautiful.
Entering the restaurant you were facing the counter where the cooks did their magic on the heat plates with the customers facing them on the opposite side of the counter. There was a slight cooked meat-haze setting the mood for the evening. I sat down, were handed the menu and couldn’t decide what to have. On principle I ended up with their finest selection (A5, grade 12) and getting a 200g ribeye and 90g fillet. Two very different kinds of meat, both with their pros and cons. The full menu was a starter (3 slices of wagyu roast beef – the tenderest I’ve ever had), soup (best miso soup ever), salad and vegetables with the meat. The steaks were amazing – the taste was intense and no matter how much wasabi or extra salt & pepper you’d add you could still easily taste the meat. The fillet was tender like soft butter – it was impressive and mind blowing. When the chef gave me the last two pieces he apologized that it was the chewy parts of the meat, but I had to tell him they were still more tender than any other steak I had had outside this restaurant.
Throughout cooking the fatty edges had been removed and the chef had been chopping them up in small pieces, moving them around on the heat plate letting them simmer in their own juices and greasing the plate for the other bits he was cooking at the time. In the end he piled on a large handful of bean sprouts on top, mixed it up, let it all get warm and served it as a finishing touch. No meat when to waste. As “dessert” I was served a thick slice of a very sweet potato cooked in the remaining meat juices. Delicious!
Leaving the restaurant I was happier, fuller
and a bit poorer (you definitely get to pay a premium for eating “real” top of
the line Kobe beef and not “just” wagyu) than when I arrived, with a
certificate in my hand confirming it was real Kobe beef and the family tree to
grandparents of the cow I had (and not being able to get a finger print of a
cow I instead got a snout print!). I returned to the station and took the
shinkansen back to Osaka.
On my last full day in Osaka I visited the aquarium, a large square, almost cubic, building, where the majority of the path you followed circled the center of the building holding a giant tank containing among other things two whale sharks. On the outer side of the path there were other large pools where the biggest had some incredibly playful dolphins.
After this I returned to Dotonbori where I found a small hole-in-the-wall place making some delicious okonomiyaki (and a couple of takoyakis as starters). Relaxing the rest of the afternoon I was ready to head out and return to Dotonbori where I had a pile of sushi for dinner.
Checking out on the Friday was a breeze and so it was getting to the Shin-Osaka station. But from there it started going downhill. I noticed something wasn’t right when I noticed much more chaos than expected around the gates to the shinkansen area, and it didn’t take long for me to notice the information notices informing passengers about a “contact between person and vehicle”. The entire shinkansen network and been stopped resulting in extensive delays and cancellations. Some trains had at this point been delayed for more than 2 hours. My train had been cancelled up to a few stops before Osaka and otherwise “only” delayed 25 minutes. After the extensive wait we were finally on our way and arriving in Tokyo the delay had increased to 40 minutes. In Japanese terms this was significant. This meant that I had gotten to Tokyo at around 1500 and my biggest worry was to go across the city in a local train in the middle of rush hour with all my luggage, but it seemed like I managed to miss the worst part. I checked into the hotel where my tour would start and waited for the start of the tour welcome meeting.
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