First up we went straight to the river and hopped on board a river cruise! Boy, were we in for a treat when they told us that a Japanese TV show was being filmed on that exact lunch time cruise!They asked if we were okay with it…well of course we were! It was hilarious! These guys were dressed in full black suits with crazy hairstyles and were acting like such silly billy’s! Of course everything was in Japanese, and we sat there with these goofy grins on our faces the entire time. Every now and then they threw out these English words at us. The camera man eventually came and sat with his camera pointed directly at us, the only foreigners on the boat. Who knows if we will make it onto the show or not but it was definitely a crazy experience!
As we were walking away laughing about it, another group of guys came and asked if they could interview us on our experience of Japan! How random? Hopefully we will get to see some of this! We mozzied on over to Umeda and wandered around on the way towards Umeda Sky Building to try catch the sunset, however as we got there the sky turned ominous grey and soon started shooting down some big drops of rain. Our plans of hopping on the Ferris Wheel on top of the HEP 5 shopping mall nearby where also crushed because of the bad weather. We made our way back to our AirBNB for a bit of a rest before hitting Dotonbori again to try ALL THE FOOD! I wish we had taken a video of us tasting everything like our friends Megan and Scott over at BoboandChichi, but I was TOO BUSY ENJOYING IT ALL and Mark found himself some other forms of entertainment…FISHING in a games arcade!!
Back in Umeda we went on the hunt for some okonomiyaki, a type of savoury pancake made on the grill with whatever you like in it, plus some octopus shavings on top. Flipping delicious. We finally got up to Umeda Sky Garden (and were a little disappointed to find no actual garden). The sunset over the river and the views of the city were great!
We really loved Dotonbori, mainly for the food and lights and bustling-ness of the city! Umeda, however, made me feel a little nauseous as we kept getting lost inside Umeda station!! I don’t know how, but the two or three times we found ourselves there we just couldn’t seem to get out. It really didnt help that our google maps went crazy because of all the railway lines connecting there! Have you been to Osaka? What was your impression of Umeda Station? Are we the only ones to have felt this way??