nrgburst | Day trip to Osaka (Reply)

'Twas the day after Christmas, so nothing to do
but take the expressway and bid home toodle-loo~

Just kidding - Kid #2 watches a lot of YouTube and wanted to check out the Glico man and eat food from certain shops, so we left first thing in the morning and basically wandered around and ate all day. It was great!😁

This bridge and the view is iconic, so here is the obligatory pic!

No trip to Osaka would be complete without some kushikatsu! Our faves were the beef ones - tender, juicy beef in a paper thin crispy coating. We also had the obligatory takoyaki (octopus balls), and we also checked out Horai 551 for the butaman (Chinese style steamed pork buns).

Mmmm, fresh seafood! Kid #2 tried crab for the first time and the verdict was: crab sticks made of crab flavoured pollack are better and easier to eat. LOL That scallop was huuuge and so good!

There were tacky statues everywhere (mostly mascots and various kinds of seafood), but the abundance of Spider-man statues seemed especially odd. Seriously: why is he all over Osaka? We saw three in various poses like this:

Peter Parker escaping after getting some yakiniku (Korean BBQ), I guess. How is Marvel/Disney not suing?!

Anyway, we didn't realize how much all the tourists in the Namba area were stressing us out until we went to Tenjinbashi shopping area, which was full of mostly locals. Suddenly the shop staff were polite again, prices weren't exorbitant, there was about 8000% less litter and public toilets were available and clean. Also we could finally hear people talking in Kansai-ben, which to this non-native but fairly fluent Japanese speaker doesn't sound like Japanese. 😅 Even my husband thinks so - it's got such an odd inflection! The closest comparison to me is how Irish people sound speaking English - lilting all over the place and almost unintelligible to my Canadian ear.

Anyway, we had a nice (Taiwanese hehe) dinner there and then we drove home. A really long day, but all of us had a good time. It's been so long since our last family trip - I think we all sort of forgot how much we like travelling (and eating new things!). Here's hoping we go someplace else soon! (I'm hoping Seoul, but more likely Matsumoto will be our next trip). 🙌

Hope you are all having a great holiday! I've been chilling at home reading now that I have two weeks off work, so I might even have a book post up before year end! 🙌