This is part of an ongoing travelogue. To start at the very beginning, click here.
Day 8 and our final day in Japan! And also our third day in Osaka. Today was supposed to be a day trip to Himeji Castle and Kobe, but was dropped in favour of spending another day in Osaka. So for today’s itinerary, first is to visit Kuromon Ichiba market, then walk on down to Den Den Town (Nipponbashi), then visit Shinsaibashi Shopping Street, then if we’re feeling up to it, drop by Amemura and finish off in Shinsekai. Well, we’re probably not going do everything in the itinerary, seeing that we’re coming to the end of the long week and we’re fast running out of stamina…
But first off, we’re going to Kuromon Ichiba Market. This is a food market, similar to Nishiki Market in Kyoto, but more on food, and less of retail shops. As usual, we took a subway there from our hotel.
Early to mid morning is the best time to visit this market, as it is buzzing with people and fresh seafood. And they really have lots of variety of food to try – scallops, oysters, sushi, kobe beef and fruits.
(Kobe beef! In many different cuts, but all very expensive)
There was really a lot of enticing food, we tried some fried chicken, green tea ice cream and the soybean milk. But since we just had breakfast in the hotel, we didn’t really try a lot of food.
We finished walking most of the market, and left to go on with our itinerary. But later in the evening, when we were in Shinsekai, we were looking for wagyu beef (or commonly known as Kobe beef), we decided to come back to Kuromon Ichiba as there wasn’t any in Shinsekai.
So we actually came here twice in a day. Here there are many stalls selling different kinds of expensive beef, but we were looking for wagyu and matsuzaka. Most of them were rather pricey, in the end we decided on this stall.
Considering the price, we only bought thee two skewers – one wagyu, one matsuzaka. Both were juicy and tender, but really, it was nothing really special to justify the price.
(our measly two skewers for 4 of us)
So not much of a meal, we were still not full yet.
Finally, we decided to try okonomiyaki, a pancake that is an Osaka delicacy.
The okonomiyaki was heavy on the soy sauce, else it taste pretty good. We also ordered the fried noodles. It was a little oily but tasted okay.
At mid afternoon, we decided to call it a day and head back to our hotel for a rest.