Japan 2023 Day 6: Osaka

 DAY 6: 16 JUN 2023

TeamLab Botanical Gardens Osaka

It's shopping day today!

We started our day with breakfast at Kuromon Market which was a short walk away from our hotel.

This is a popular place for tourists to get their seafood fix!

We were spoilt for choice!

In the end, we decided on our breakfast items:

tuna sushi, ebi sushi and wagyu beef

Sushi platters were about 1000 yen each.

As for the wagyu beef, Michelle paid at least S$50 if I am not mistaken.

I had a taste of the wagyu beef and it was so good and fragrant!

After breakfast, we slowly made our way to Namba Yasaka shrine 

which has a famous lion head-shaped building.

Then it was time for lunch.

As Amanda was really full from the sushi, only Michelle and I had lunch.

We dined at Wagyu Sukiyaki Hokuto and they were having a lunch promotion.

My sukiyaki set costs about 1,100 yen and the portion was just right for me.

The dish had a good balance between meat and vegetables.

It was also fun cooking it too as we could add as much broth as we wanted.

I added a tad too much, but it made my vegetables sweet and yummy.

The sukiyaki was delicious and definitely value for money!

Our trip was coming to end and we have yet to try Mister Donut!

We popped by a store during the evening a few days back but most items were sold out.

Although we were stuffed, we decided to buy the donuts first and eat it later in the day.

I got the famous pon de ring!

After getting our donuts, we headed to our next destination:

Sumiyoshi Taisha

Sumiyoshi Taisha is a shinto shrine located in southern Osaka.

The main reason for visiting this shrine was because it is near the teamLab botanical gardens.

To be honest, this shrine is similar to the other shrines we visited and we were unable to fully appreciate what the shrine offers.

That being said, it is not worth a visit unless you are familiar with shinto religion.

After spending a short period of time at the shrine, we decided to make our way to Nagai park.

Nagai park is huge and we wanted to visit the botanical gardens for hydrangeas.

Our stroll to the park led us through many quiet residential neighbourhoods.

We took close to 40 minutes to get to the park.

Michelle was "raging" halfway through our walk as she "suddenly" realised that we could have taken the bus there.

It was hilarious because before setting off, we gave her the options of bus or walk.

She chose to walk, so we walked.

But she didn't realise the journey took so long.

Despite the rage, we made it!

Mister Donut's strawberry pon de ring

The botanical gardens closed by the time we arrived.

So, we decided to people watch and have our donuts at a park bench.

To my surprise, my pon de ring donut was chewy.

If you were to ask me to queue for hours to get this in Singapore, the answer is a definite no.

It was close to 5.30pm and we decided to have an early dinner.

Just a short walk away from the park lies a quaint curry shop specialising in udon and risotto.

We were the first customers for that evening!

I had curry udon and it was so unique!

I always associated curry with rice or pasta but curry with udon is as good.

The owner was generous with the food portions too.

It was still early for teamLab.

So we decided to spend some time at the supermarket!

We bought kyoho grapes and cherry tomatoes to share.

The kyoho grapes were a steal!

Michelle spotted a promotion by authentic tea house which gave a free anime fan with a purchase of 4 products.

Amanda, being the nicest friend, carried the drinks for her the entire evening.

I helped by drinking them haha.

It was finally time for teamLab!

It was about 20 minutes before our admission time and there were many visitors already queuing at the entrance.

This experience comprises of many light installations and the walking route covered all the installations.

I enjoyed all the light installations here.

I had two favourite light installations here.

One of them was the first light installation with small coloured eggs in the forest.

The other one had to be the floating lanterns on water, exuding a serene and zen-like ambiance.

However, the number of mosquitoes at the first light installation was alarming.

I was wearing skorts and I had many bites all over my legs.

Michelle was bitten too and she had it way worse than me.

If you were to pay a visit, please wear long pants!

After the teamLab experience, we decided to head back to our hotel and rest for the night.

And that's it for day 6!

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Click here for our Day 7 adventures

or retrace our steps here for our Day 5 adventures!

- - - - - - - - - - - -