35 Things to Do in Osaka Japan! 🇯🇵 Cheap Hotel, Kyoto, Nara, and How to Avoid the Crowds

[Music] if you haven't heard Japan is currently facing problems with over tourism with record numbers of Travelers visiting the country in 2024 so they've had to take measures such as Banning tourists from Kyoto's gisha District called gon because of bad tourist Behavior installing a net barrier in a town near Mount Fuji to prevent hordes of tourists lining up and taking photos in front of this lost and convenience store and now the mayor of coob is considering raising the entrance fee sixfold for tourists to visit Himi Castle the largest and most visited Castle in Japan while knowing all this my wife Eugene and I decided to take a trip to Osaka for 7 days last week in June as it's one of our favorite places to visit and despite being tourists ourselves hearing that there would be crowds everywhere was quite concerning but we managed to have an amazing trip together and in this video I'll go over everything we did and what we ate on our 7-day trip that includes kyotto and n and also share some tips to help those that want to avoid the crowd as much as possible so let's start our journey where we live in South Korea at Inon airport and for those who don't know flights between Japan and Korea are extremely cheap if you book on weekdays and the flights are typically about 2 hours between the two countries we paid just under 150 USD each round trip for our flights with air boo on on the way there and Peach Airlines going back using Google flights which is a pretty amazing deal considering the amount of people traveling to both Japan and Korea right now the flight took about 2 hours to get to Kai airport in Osaka and when we got there we noticed a lot of travel sim cards for tourists right outside the baggage carousels but they are quite steep at 3,000 Japanese Yen for 8 days but we knew this before going so we bought ours in Korea for about 7,000 W on cang which is Korea's Amazon which is a massive difference so I'd check online in your country to see if there's any deals like that and now let's talk about where we stayed when traveling to us AKA there's a good chance you'll want to visit the main attractions such as Osaka castle and toori as well as visit Kyoto so picking a central location is important most people prefer Namba or umeda which are both really busy areas where prices aren't exactly cheap and we like to spend less money on our hotel as we spend most of our time exploring outside so we ended up finding a hotel near nakatu station about a 10 to 15minute walk from umeda station called sunplaza rinkai and for the entire six nights we stayed it was about 24,000 Japanese Yen which comes out to just under 4,000 Yen per night also before leaving the airport we had to take out some cash at the 7-Eleven ATM machines that are located after the baggage carousels that charge 220 Yen per transaction which is the same as using them in the city and now it was time to go to our hotel which we decided to take the airport bus to umeda station which is 1,800 Yen each you can take the subway for cheaper but I always find it nice to take the bus when arriving after a flight just so you you can sit back and look out the window when we arrived at umaa we noticed immediately that it's an incredibly busy area and it took us about 10 to 15 minutes to walk to a hotel when we got closer we noticed that the area around nakutu is a lot quieter and we checked [Music] in [Music] p for one of the reasons we travel is to see how other people live in different countries and checking out the convenience store is a great way to do that also the restaurants nearby were all closed so we decided to have a little convenience store dinner to celebrate our first night for so much it was now day two and we decided to check out NATA the city east of Osaka that was Japan's capital in the 700s we took the subway about an hour to ketun station and got out an exit 2o and we were on our way we noticed right away that we were surrounded by other tourists from outside Japan just like ourselves and after walking straight for about 5 minutes we arrived at the entrance of nat Park and immediately saw the deer waiting near the food vendors that sell food to feed the deer for 200 yen Eugen bought a little bundle of snacks and the deer patiently waited for her to give them out one by [Music] one when we got into the park we noticed just how big it is and also just how many deer there are there are definitely a lot of tourists around but with the sheer size of the park I'd say it didn't feel too crowded also most people were being respectful to the deer with the exception of a lady who was running away screaming from a deer and dropped all over garbage on the ground only not to pick it up after which wasn't great to see there are also so many things to see within Nara Park like the Botanical Garden a Shinto Shrine called kasuga TAA and a massive Buddhist temple called toi which both of us had never seen so we decided to check it out for 800 Yen each toichi was built in the 700s and it has one of the largest bronze Buddha statues in all of Japan to be honest I wasn't expecting a lot but when I got inside it was absolutely breathtaking it's hard to get a grasp through photos or videos just how big this Temple and the Buddha statue inside it are but the statue itself is 15 M or almost 50 ft high and as someone who has visited a ton of Buddhist temples in Asia toichi is one of the most impressive and beautiful temples I've ever seen there were definitely a lot of tourists there as well but it's still worth checking out in my opinion after visiting the temple it was getting incredibly hot out at about 30° C and humid so we decided to find a place to eat nearby and Eugen found a Japanese Home Cooking restaurant to cool off at this place is called n omoi which means to look after guests and the food comes out on little side dishes just like the shape of the logo and everything was really light and seasoned with different sauces making for a big variety of flavors and it was really Fresh So I strongly recommend this place and right outside the restaurant there was the Higa shimi shopping street which looked like it had a ton of shops with souvenirs but for us it was time to head back to Osaka on the subway and we got amazing views of the city and our way back on the train also since our Subway transferred at Namba station we decided to check Osaka's most famous area of DOI on the way [Music] back doomi is a river surrounded by buildings that's basically Osaka's version of New York's Time Square filled with massive Billboards that light up at night including this glyos sign that everyone takes photos at and tons of restaurants in the surrounding area some of them with really cool moving signs like this there's also a ton of entertainment and shopping in the surrounding area and you can watch just about any video on Osaka and this will probably be the highl highl light but for us it was so filled with tourists that it barely felt like we were in Japan and we've explored Dori in the past so we decided to make our visit brief but there are some great food stands just north of the river at shinsaibashi which is Osaka's most famous shopping area and we decided to try out takoyaki or octopus balls one of Osaka's Specialties and was said to be invented by an Osaka Street vender named tomichi Endo in 1935 but was apparently an adaptation of another dish called chobo Yaki which is very similar but flat instead we tried OED which was four different flavors of takoyaki and it ended up being really good to start day three we spent some time walking through the massive underground shopping area connecting all the subway and train stations at umeda inside you can find a ton of different restaurants and cafes and it's also linked up to a ton of department stores so it's a really good area to spend some time in when the weather isn't so good and for today we had a really special plan in January 2023 while traveling to Hokkaido Japan for a ski trip we met two incredibly nice Japanese ladies from Osaka named chosan and mosan randomly at rutu ski resort and they are fluent and Korean so we had a little conversation and exchanged contact information before going to Osaka we contacted them again and decided to meet up with them and found out that chosan does tour is in English Korean and Japanese close to Osaka Castle we decided to walk to Tani Machi do to meet up with them which is a good 1 hour or 5 km walk and I want to include this on our list of things to do as if you take the Subways everywhere you do get to travel faster between places of interest but you end up missing a lot of the residential areas in between them which is one of our favorite parts of traveling just seeing how regular people live their day-to-day lives and you can usually stumble upon some interesting views that aren't surrounded by other tourists as well so I strongly recommend saving half a day on any trip to go on a random Adventure get lost and explore but let's get back to the tour we met up with both chosan and mosan at the station and we started our tour which chosan arranged specifically to our taste as people who enjoy exploring around neighborhoods randomly which we do a lot in Korea and it was so much fun that we like to promote her tour because I think a lot of people who tune in to our channel will enjoy it a lot and this wasn't sponsored or planned in advance or anything we just simply want to help out an amazing lady with an adventurous and carrying Spirit who truly deserves more customers and she'll adjust her tour to your liking if you also want to try it and she can do it in either English or Korean no problem since we had already been to Osaka Castle on a previous trip which is worth going to Once if you haven't been to it we started exploring the chuo and Teno Wards near the castle which ended up being more interesting than visiting the castle itself chosan was extremely knowledgeable about the area and talked us through the history of the neighborhood as the castle grounds used to be a lot bigger than they are today and there are still Remains the original wall hidden throughout the streets and in between the buildings she then took us to a shop that recycled traditional Japanese tadami mats which is the flooring found in traditional Japanese homes and they create various goods from the recycled materials we then saw some traditional houses that have been around for hundreds of years and an older lady we met on the street invited us into her house to check out her origami which is really beautiful and having both chosan and mosan with us to translate made it so we could experience things a lot more in depth than if we were by ourselves we then went to a traditional Market explored the older Alleyways from higher up and we even got to taste test green tea from a very passionate green tea master who walked us through step by step how to make the perfect cup of green tea and it was also completely free and not part of the tour so I'll include the location link in the description and I won't show every detail of the tour as it's better to experience everything in person with chiao sun explaining it to you but I'll include the link in the description so check it out if it sound sounds interesting we then ended the night at an amazing okonomiyaki place called okonomiyaki Faya which is a type of Japanese pancake grilled with cabbage meat and/or seafood and of course okonomiyaki sauce this is the best okonomiyaki we've ever tried and there were a variety of options to choose from ending one of our most Memorial days in Japan for us with a bang for day four it was time to head to Kyoto the city famous for traditional Japanese culture with its many temples palaces and shrines and in particular there are three places that are commonly seen as musse places starting with the Fushimi Inari Taisha the Shinto Shrine famous for the pathway with thousands of Vermilion Gates then there is the K mizera the Buddhist Temple located on the mountain side with the beautiful Pagoda and lastly King Kakui the golden Buddhist temple Eugene and I had already seen Fushimi inar TAA on our last trip together and I've been to King Kakui a few times on different trips with which is a bit out of the way and not a must SE in my opinion so instead of heading to one of those three first we started by heading to the mountains in hopes of avoiding the crowds our journey started by taking the Kahan Railway line from yodoyabashi station all the way to deach Yanagi station in Northern Kyoto and transferring to the Kurama line which is fully outdoor and reminds me of taking a trip into a studio jibli [Applause] movie the train goes through the beautiful Northern neighborhoods of Kyoto and then through the forest which barely has enough space for the train to pass through and it's really cool to just sit down and watch the train go through and then we arrived at Kurama station with tons of space to ourselves on our way to the Kura Madera Temple it costs 500 yen to enter the temple and it's basically a 30-minute hike up a lot of stairs through the forest that eventually leads there the temple was founded in the 700s and it said that a Chinese monk initiated a disciple into the Buddhist path who had a vision that mount kudama had a special spirit spiritual power and the temple was built on the mountain to control it on the way up you pass various Buddha statues and small waterfalls and it's incredibly Serene and peaceful you can also take a cable car to the top but in my opinion the hike up is the best part of the journey there are also a lot of old monuments with moss growing on them so you can really feel the presence of time here and it almost feels like adventuring inside a Zelda game with massive trees surrounding the path that make it really Majestic everything here is old but feels harmonious with the surrounding nature and when you get closer to the top you get amazing views of the mountains nearby surrounded by pine trees we made it to the temple which is incredibly peaceful and quiet exactly the type of atmosphere we were looking for and there's also a shrine further up the mountain called keun Shrine that I've seen in the past and worth the trip if you have the energy for it but it was starting to get really hot out and we wanted to head down to get some food and cool off the heat was really getting to us so we accidentally went to the wrong restaurant with lower reviews but that didn't matter and proved that Google reviews aren't everything as the owner was super friendly and despite originally wanting cold Soo noodles the hot ones that I accidentally ordered were amazing too as were the Udo noodles that Eugene ordered and we are now on our way to the second attraction of the day which we talked about earlier K Mizu deu the Buddhist temple on the mountain side as it was under repair the last time we were in Kyoto and this is where we definitely got a taste of what over tourism looks like the alleyway going up to the Temple is filled with various gift shops and some hidden shrines on the way up and it was absolutely swarming with people which was a huge contrast from the Mountain Temple we visited earlier however K Mizu daa is incredibly beautiful and once you get to the entrance of the temple grounds it starts to space out so you can start to actually see your surroundings with lots of beautiful traditional Japanese architecture to look at kiom Mizu daa is also from the late 700s and was built after a priest had a vision to build a temple next to the haa spring which is still around today and when we got to the main hall there were a lot of people sitting and standing around everywhere giving it a completely different atmosphere than kuruda we saw earlier and when you walk past the temple you get the main view of the main hall with the city in the background which is a really beautiful site and then continue forth to the pagota on the mountain side despite the amount of people everywhere I think it's still worth seeing once and when we were heading back to Osaka we accidentally stumbled upon the biggest cemetery that either of us had had seen before called the Otani Cemetery it's important to be respectful walking through a cemetery so we explored quietly and it was absolutely silent filled with gravestones all over the mountain side with multiple layers almost like a big sea of them I don't normally seek this type of place out while traveling but stumbling upon it randomly was a very interesting and unique experience and ended up being one of the more Memorial places of our trip just for the massive scale and the atmosphere and now we are heading back to Osaka and we got off at umeda station looking for a sushi restaurant to splurge out a bit on after a long day and we found a place located on the 12th floor the hunu department store with a really long name and we weren't expecting that much to be honest but wow it was good first of all the shrimp Sushi was incredibly tender and the sauce made it extremely creamy and savory and then they had a plate with three different types of magodo or tuna sushi and all three of them were probably top 10 things I've ever eaten in my life so I strongly recommend this place [Music] we had now done a lot of exploring away from where we stayed near umeda so it was time to do some browsing around nearby and to start our day there was something of interest for both of us in the same building Japan is the biggest manufacturer for cameras in the world by far and there's a massive camera an electronics department store called Yodo Bashi camera that can be found all over the country and the one right beside station is the biggest one I've ever seen it's seven floors of various Tech and other Goods ranging from smartphones computers physical media cameras video games toys and even camping equipment and as a camera nerd myself I love the camera section because you can physically pick up any camera from basically every brand and play around with it and there's even a huge selection of different lenses to try out and they usually have items on display that aren't available yet like the Panasonic Lumix S9 which is Panasonic's answer to the compact Retro Camera craze that's happening right now I think I spent about 2 hours here and I could have spent the entire day no problem and then for those who want to go clothes shopping or maybe your wife isn't interested in cameras like mine isn't well luckily uni is right beside yabashi camera which you can think of kind of like Japan's version of H&M but higher quality and here you can buy things were a lot cheaper than the uni cloes found in Korea and other countries especially with the week Yen right now there's also more selection and you can buy everything taxfree if you spend over 5,000 yen after doing some browsing eug and I caved and had Wendy's for the first time in about 10 years which tasted just like I remember from North America with the Cajun chicken sandwich especially being amazing and they even have draft beer here and after we decided to head down to denen town which is Osaka's version of akiabara electronics town in Tokyo to get there we decided to go on another longer walk as for us just being in Japan and discovering the Hidden Treasures on the quiet well organized streets away from the crowds is one of our favorite things to do and we like to stop in at various convenience stores and Marts on the way we arrived at dend town where they sell lots of anime Goods such as figurines and manga there are computer stores selling various parts and of course retro gaming stores there are massive buildings decorated with anime characters the loss and convenience store dressed up like the Dragon Quest was awesome and just wandering through the main Alleyway there were tons of people walking around so it'd be best to arrive at 11:00 a.m. when things are opening up also there were tons of maids lining the streets for the maid cafes which you and I tried in the past and it was one of the more unique things we have ever done before and of course the famous retro gaming store super potato I've been visiting this store a lot these past 10 years and it's where I bought most of my Zelda collection that's getting older and starting to collect dust today but I've noticed that there was a big shift towards Retro Gaming during the pandemic and prices have skyrocketed I think I paid about 2500 Yen for my original famicom Legend of Zelda cartridge and it's now one of the special games inside the store sitting inside a display for almost 9,000 Yen the Game Boy Color is also really expensive at about 20,000 yen each and it seems like as more tourists visit Japan stores like super potato have gotten way more expensive with a lot less stock however it's still really cool to look around and see the games especially when you find one like this Power Rangers cartridge for the super famicom worth almost $2,500 USD we then returned back to nakatu for dinner and we found a Ramen place nearby in some Alleyways that almost reminded me of Yong near hung and soul the place is called Ramen kikan and it seems like they get a lot of tourist customers as most of the staff spoke perfect English we ordered the Shou or soy sauce ramen and it was the richest broth I've ever had before the noodles are handmade with a thick and nice chewy texture and there's a variety of chicken pork and eggs if you order the special topping it was pretty heavy but good to my tastes day six it was now day six and our final full day in Osaka we went back to umeda and found an amazing bakery cafe with tons of selection lots of seeding and good value too and Japan seems to have some of the best baked goods I've ever eaten before so it's definitely worth a try also today it was time to finally check out the umeda sky Building observatory which is about a 10-minute walk from umeda station and since there was a lot of construction going on Google recommended us to go on a big detour but we found out after that there was also a direct route that we didn't know about the umida sky building is 170 m high and was completed in 1993 and has a really unique and futuristic architecture from the outside and to get to the observatory take the escalators up to the third floor and then ride the elevator up to the 39th floor you then ride this futuristic escalator in midair that's probably familiar if you've watched other videos on Osaka and this is where you buy your ticket that's 1500 Yen for adults and the observatory has 360° views of the city which is really beautiful to look at and you can see really far as well there's also a cafe with some desserts and also various beers right at the beginning and you can sit down and enjoy the view with a light snack the unique thing about this Observatory is you get to explore outside on the Rooftop at this really interesting ring structure that lets you walk around safely and enjoy the views it would have been really great to come here at Sunset and night time but we came early in the morning on purpose to avoid the crowds and as we left there were swarms of people coming so I think it would have been jam packed if we waited and it was definitely worth going early to get ourselves a lot of space we spent some more time just relaxing and enjoying umeda during the day visiting Yoshinoya which is like a cheap Japanese fast food and I've been addicted to the gudon or beef bowl since I first tried it so I recommend it if you haven't and then when it was time for dinner we explored the indoor Alleyways found all over umeda which were definitely very busy but as a contrast to shinsaibashi and toori it was mostly Japanese people hanging out there and it had an amazing atmosphere we wanted to end our trip with a bang and we found it hidden Yakitori or meet skewers place called Kachi this place had a really local vibe to it and it looks like it's been around for a very long time with a really friendly owner that never laughed at our terrible Japanese and bar seating right in front to watch him work away a guy beside us recommended the chicken ball skewers which are really savor and juicy and the karagi chicken or fried chicken which is the best and juiciest karagi I've ever had Kachi was a great place to feel Osaka's warmth and the really relaxed and homey atmosphere made it the perfect little joint to end our trip and don't be intimidated by the local atmosphere as people really friendly in [Music] there ready to go back home babe oh yeah K back to it was now time to head back to Soul but our flight wasn't until 6:00 p.m. so we decided to check out Dori one last time in the morning in hopes that there would be less people when we arrived at Namba station we found some lockers that allow you to store your bags for up to 3 days for 500 yen in the smallest locker and we could fit all our stuff in there as we typically travel with backpacks instead of carriers when we got to Doom there were still a lot of people around but way less than there were when we went there around dinner time before a lot of places were closed as they seem to open at 11:00 a.m. but some of the popular food stalls open early so if you're looking to buy something like the cheesecake at rikudo the morning time would be perfect for that we had some free time so we decided to explore the area and found the henji yokoo allei which has a temple with a statue covered in Moss from people pouring water over it as a form of prayer after World War II then we decide to go back to denden town one more time to check things out with less people and we tried to find a smiling gone figure from Hunter x Hunter which we have never been able to find but we didn't have any luck and it was time for our last meal we originally wanted to go to ichidan which is the most famous Ramen chain all over Japan but the three different franchises in the surrounding area all had waiting times of about an hour and no offense to ichon it's good but not wait an hour and a lineup good and our last tip for the video is to look around for similar restaurants nearby when you see a line like this usually one of places is really popular another place will pop up right beside it and in our case there was another Ramen place that sold a lighter Ramen filled with vegetables that came in a huge Bowl which is probably better overall than ichon and also the perfect meal to have before a flight and that ended our amazing 7-day trip to Osaka the entire trip including our flights Hotel Transportation entertainment and food cost us just over 80,000 yen per person which isn't too bad for a weeklong trip to Japan and we absolutely pigged out on amazing food from restaurants and convenience stores every single day so we could have made it a lot cheaper if we wanted and we got to explore the majority of places we had our eyes set on and while exploring we realized that Osaka is an amazing City and definitely one of our favorites in Japan we're already looking forward to our next trip there as there are so many things to see and so much to eat too we hope this video had some useful information and we could share some interesting places from Osaka with everyone thank you so much for watching and hope you have a great trip to Saka someday [Music]

Channel: Lost Then Found

Views: 6,678

Keywords: lost then found, travelogue, 여행, 국제커플, 브이로그, adventure, 세계 여행, LTF, Dotonbori, Shinsaibashi, Takoyaki, Umeda, Osaka Castle, Green Tea, Okonomiyaki, sushi, Yodobashi Camera, Uniqlo, Wendy’s, Denden Town, Super Potato, Ramen, Yoshinoya, Ichiran, Nara, Fushimi Inari Taisha, Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji, what to do in osaka, what to do in kyoto, japan travel, travel osaka, japanese food, japanese trip, japan travel guide, japan vlog, osaka vlog, osaka guide, osaka travel guide, overtourism

Id: iUdWNTAkGRs

Length: 26min 44sec (1604 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2024