On our second day in Kyoto we spent the first couple hours of the day getting to and exploring Fushimi Inari Shrine, then we hopped back on the train to Osaka. We got on the train at Fushimi Inari Station and arrived at our first stop in Osaka at 11:03am!

Christian and I aren't into nightlife so we were there for the food, shopping and sights! I was on the hunt for my designer bag treat and Christian wanted to buy a bunch of vintage games. He also had a very specific snack in mind for our visit to Dotonbori Street. We walked 9.4 miles this day, phew!

Day 12 (Thursday)

Where We Went

Osaka Castle

From Kyoto we make our way to Ōsakajōkōen Station because it is the closest to Osaka Castle Park. We caught our first look at the castle at 11:16 and by 11:31 had made the trek up to the main viewing area and castle entrance. It costs ¥600 to enter the castle but as we had a lot on our to do list we opted to just take in the beauty of the exterior. If it was cherry blossom season we would have stopped by Nishinomaru Garden but figured it wasn't worth the entrance fee during Winter. We left the area just before 12 and made our way to Tanimachi Yonchome Station.

Video Game Stores/DenDen Town/ Ota Street

We got off at Ebisuchō Station and took a quick walk to Ota Street. Christian found in his research that this street is known for various secondhand game and pop culture stores. We walked through quite a few and found some gems. Christian almost bought an old Pokemon game but it was definitely overpriced so he left it behind. Since more and more tourists are hunting for older games prices have skyrocketed at these stores. We shopped from around 12:20 to just before 1:30.

Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping Street

After game shopping we walked through Sennichimae shopping street. We didn't go into any stores at this point as we were on our way to NAMBA walk. This indoor shopping street is lined with specialty shops selling cookware, kitchenware, restaurant supplies, and unique souvenirs. I wanted to take a look at some of the kitchenware items but there were so many shops it was hard to know where to begin so we decided to get food first because we were starving.

NAMBA Walk/Studio Ghibli Store

Our first stop when entering NAMBA Walk was lunch. After that we found a secondhand store called "kindal namba nannan second hand store." They had some nice bags, but nothing extraordinary.

Next stop was our first Ghibli store of the trip - finally! The store is so whimsical and full of fun merchandise. I was very tempted by a Totoro desktop water fountain unfortunately it was going to be too large to bring home and was a little over $100 (which is half the price if we were to buy it from the US...) I was sad to leave it!

After the Ghibli store we popped into a BookOFF to see if they had any old games or designer bags. There were some games, but they were all normal prices. Most of the bags they had were out of budget or too "basic" so I left them too. We finished in this area at just about 3pm.

Dotonburi Street/Shinsaibashi-suji Shopping Street/Secondhand Designer Stores

We took a quick walk past Dotonburi street and passed through another covered shopping street on our way to another Brand OFF location and planned to stop at more secondhand stores along the route. Any store we saw we walked in, hoping my holy grail bag would be waiting for me. The shopping arcade had a store dedicated to used Hermes called the Orange Boutique, they mostly carried Birkin bags but had a nice selection of others. So many pretty things, but obviously out of budget. After that we went to The Real Maluho which also had a nice variety of bags, but nothing I was really hunting for.

After that we went into a store that had a couple bags that caught my eye, both Loewe. One was a red Puzzle bag, the other was a Gate Dual bag in brown python leather. I made a mental note of what the store looked like on the outside (forgot to take a photo) to go back if we didn't find anything else. We knew we would be walking back that way later in the day.

The Brand OFF had some nice bags, but they seemed more expensive than other stores with similar bags so I left empty-handed once again. We popped into a couple more stores and then it was time to go to the Pokemon Center for Christian!

After that we made our way back to the store with the Loewe bags and I bought the mini Puzzle bag in red soft grained calfskin! After the tax-free discount it came to $895.51, not too shabby for a bag that retailed for about $1800 in 2018 based on my research. The newer Edge version of the bag retails for $2650 right now. In hindsight I almost wish I bought both because the gate dual bag was such a fun texture and look, even though it was in a basic color.

Here are some day/night photos of the Dotonburi area.

Pokemon Center

We figured this would be our last stop at a Pokemon store so we bought all the items we had been thinking about for ourselves and as souvenirs. We got a few packs of Pokemon cards for my brothers and some blind boxes for us and them. We got Wanomado Japanese ones for ourselves to commemorate the trip and we got "swing" boxes for my brothers. This is the complete set of swing figures, but we just bought 2 blind boxes. We finished here just before 5pm and it was time to make our way towards dinner.

Don Quijote

Before exploring Dotonburi Street for dinner we popped into the very big Don Quijote store nearby. We were looking for souvenirs in general and anything fun we might want. I don't think we got anything...

Where We Ate

Mos Burger

Christian's brother told us to try this place because he had seen it in some YouTube videos. Christian had the Tobikiri Cheese Burger with Hokkaido Cheese and I had a plain burger with just ketchup. We also got an order of fries, onion rings and a piece of MOS chicken - aka tonkatsu. We finished it off with some sodas. I wasn't super impressed with the quality of the food, but I do appreciate their attempt. At only $14 for both of us, can't complain too much!

Dotonbori Street

Besides the video game shopping the main reason Christian wanted to come to Osaka was for Takoyaki. It is fried batter filled with octopus and topped with spicy mayo and tonkatsu sauce. He has had it a couple times at Shiki-Sai in EPCOT and was very excited to try it from the source. A couple places along the street sell takoyaki but he was looking for a specific location, Takoyaki Juhachiban Dotonbori. They have really fun decor - a large takoyaki ball - outside the stand and you can watch them making the balls while you wait. We got lucky and there wasn't a huge line, but we've seen it can get pretty long. He really enjoyed them but also noted that EPCOT is pretty close in deliciousness. Although the EPCOT version uses more ground up octopus vs larger pieces that this shop did.

After the takoyaki it was my turn to eat! (I don't eat mayo or a lot of sauces so takoyaki is a definite no for me.) To make it easy we just walked across the way to Osaka Ohsho for some gyoza. Large decor must have been the theme because they have a giant gyoza on top of their sign. They offer takeout but I wanted to sit down to give my back and feet a rest so we asked for a table inside. We sat all the way to the back of the first floor which was a pretty nice spot. There are other floors as well but I was happy to not have to go up stairs.

I got an order or original gyoza, Christian had the Dotonburi style gyoza (same toppings as takoyaki) and I also got some garlic fried rice. We paid in yen for all our dinner foods and it came out to about $18 after I did calculations. (This also includes some donuts we bought later at the train station.)

Mister Donut

We kept seeing Mister Donut locations at train stations and since we had some extra yen burning a hole in our pocket we decided to buy a couple to eat back at our hotel in Kyoto. They were pretty standard but we enjoyed them nonetheless.