Japan: Day 16 — Kyoto to Osaka ...

My Airbnb apartment in Osaka

It was a holiday in Japan as part of the Obon festival and a lot of places weren’t open. I was going to try a restaurant around the corner from my guest house in Kyoto before setting off for a western style breakfast but they weren’t open. Veg Out was on the way to the train station, so I figured I'd stop there for some breakfast but they too were closed.

I set off on the train a tad hungry. Thankfully, Osaka was less than an hour away. Check out in Kyoto was 11am and I wasn’t allowed into the next place until 3pm. I had booked an Airbnb apartment and the lady allowed me to do a self-check-in and drop off my big backpack.

I found the new place easily, got the key from the mailbox and took my pack up to the room. It hadn't been cleaned yet but it was cute. I left my bag in a corner of the suite and went back out into the heat of the day realizing I never really made a solid plan for the afternoon.

I quickly checked my to-do list for Osaka and decided to head to the first thing on the list. It was about a half hour away by train. I didn't realize the place I had picked was in the heart of Osaka nor did I know that Osaka is the second biggest metropolitan area in Japan. Coming from (somewhat) quiet Kyoto, I was overwhelmed at the number of people rushing around. Wow!

Very cool escalators up to the observatory at the Umeda Sky Building

The place I went to see was called the Umeda Sky Building. The architecture was awesome and for ¥1000, you could go to an outdoor observatory on the top of the building. The skies were gray and threatening rain but I went up anyway! There was a cool breeze up there and it was nice to get a complete 360-degree view of Osaka.

Overlooking Osaka from the outdoor observatory

I still had yet to eat and was starving! I looked at a number of menus but nothing was calling to me to stop for a bite. I ended up settling for an Italian place that was quite busy and reasonably priced. I ordered a four cheese pizza which wasn’t that good.

During my late lunch, I got a note from the lady at the Airbnb stating that her place was ready and I was welcome to go back! I headed back to the apartment to unpack. There were a few supermarkets nearby so I went to do a bit of shopping. The place had an extremely tiny kitchen so I didn’t use it for cooking. She had very little in the way of pots, utensils and spices.

I bought some fruit, yogurt and veggies and treated myself to a bottle of red wine! I had some leftover pizza, so dinner was taken care of for the night. I watched some TV and tried making a plan for the next day. The weather forecast for the next few days wasn’t looking promising. I went to bed early and decided to make a decision in the morning based on the weather.