Earlier in November, boyfriend and I went for our much deserving holiday trip to Japan – the land of sushi, ramen, udon and oden! I was super excited and exhausted at the same time; excited because I've planned for this trip since a very long time ago, and exhausted because I was down with flu and fever after a long run of wedding planning and execution (not ours).
We took a midnight flight and reached Tokyo at around 7:30am in the morning. It wasn’t that bad as we managed to sleep throughout the flight, or at least I did.
The first order of business after passing through customs and baggage collection was to collect all our pre-booked tickets and SIM card from the Klook counter, located inside Narita International Airport Terminal 1 at the 2nd level of the Central Building. Thereafter, we went down to collect our Japan Rail (JR) Pass at the JR East Travel Service Center located inside Narita Airport Station.
The JR East Travel Service Center is a place with tonnes of information about Japanese culture and ethics, basic Japanese phrases to help tourists get by, their different cities and getting there, and of course, information relating to using the JR Pass. Plus, the staff at the service center are also very helpful in clarifying tourists' queries, if any.
About 3 hours later, we were finally ready to set off from Narita International Airport for Osaka. When we were collecting our JR Pass, the lady at the counter was nice enough to help us arrange and reserve our seats for our train rides to Osaka. And since our train is only departing at 10:45am, we went to get some bento sets and drinks from the mini-mart at the station before boarding our train.
The entire journey took about 3.5 hours, so after chomping down our lunch, the next thing to do (at least for me) was… SLEEP. Yes, that’s right! I sleep a lot and I can fall asleep anywhere easily, especially during long rides. By the time I woke up, we were less than an hour away from our destination, so we turned to play Mobile Legends.
*Note: There’s free Wi-Fi onboard the trains, so connect to their Wi-Fi to save on your data, if you did not get the unlimited data plan. The speed is fairly quick with a pretty stable connection. It is, at the very least, enough to play a smooth Mobile Legends game.
After the 3.5 hours ride, we arrived at Shin-Osaka Station, where we had to take another train down to Kintetsu-Nippombashi Station, where our AirBnB apartment is about 7 minutes’ walk from the station.
The apartment is only about 2 minutes’ walk from the ever famous Dontonbori, which mean… LOTS OF FOOD AROUND US! After settling down, we explored the surrounding area, found this amazing street stall that sells beef skewers. There were 3 different types of beef, one being the beef tongue, which wasn't available at that time, so we both ordered 1 normal beef skewers each and each stick costs ¥300. A little expensive but it was really good. So yum!! We kept munching a little here and there before finally heading to Shinsekai (新世界). It was supposed to be a short walk but somehow I felt like it took us quite long to get to the train station from our apartment.
Ebisucho Station is only one stop away from Kintetsu-Nippombashi Station via Sakaisuji Line, and though it was only about 4pm when we reached Ebisucho Station, the sun was already setting as it was the autumn season and daylight time was shorter.
There were more and more tourists flooding in when it came close to 5pm and the streets of Shinsekai started to be filled up with a lot of buzz. Later into the evening, the streets were filled with locals as well. We decided to start our night at this Takoyaki shop at the end of the streets as we saw many locals heading in there, and thought “If the locals eat there, it must be good.” We were right. We the Takoyaki were amazing; crispy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. It was full of flavours.
After having our Takoyaki fill, we stumbled upon the famous Kura Sushi, aka Gachapon Sushi. So, of course, we went in to have some sushi and tried our luck with the Gachapon. But we did not have any luck with the Gachapon, and we left after finishing 15 plates of sushi. We were pretty much full so we decided to continue exploring the Shinsekai neighbourhood before heading back to Dontonbori.
Before we left for Dontonbori, we stumbled upon the Shinsekai New World Night Market, and to be honest, I was a feeling scared when we walked in as I didn’t know about the night market then and the market was very dimly lit, and as we walked down the aisle, we spotted quite a bit of exotic foods (ie. Scorpion) being sold. To me, it was like a scary movie setting and my imagination went wild and I got scared. I thought we had stumbled into a place that we weren’t supposed to be in and because not much people were at the night market yet, most attention was on us when we walked in, which made me even more afraid. But luckily, it was a legitimise market and I am just being paranoid.
Shinsekai New World Night Market is located within the New World Market at the base of Tsutenkaku, and opens every Saturday, from 5pm to 9:30pm.
Dontonbori (道頓堀) is madly crowded during the weekends to the point where everywhere we turn, there will be a crowd. We stopped by Round-1 Stadium to play some claw machine / UFO catcher, where boyfriend caught a fluffy Kirby keychain for me and a One Piece Ace figurine. We ended the night with more street food and, again, the beef skewers. The night is chilly with the wind blowing strong, but my heart and tummy were so full and warm.
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