Day 2 of sightseeing!

Think we have reached a point in our trip that everybody is mostly worn out and have developed minor ailments here and there. But we still dragged ourselves out of course.

Day started with the highly recognizable Osaka Castle! There's a bit of history in it but I think after a while we stopped caring hahahah and Val just collapsed on one of the benches in a quiet corner of the museum.

One thing I remember from Osaka is the amount of walking we do. Another long walk to a train station and headed off to Tennoji area where we were to have lunch and visit the attractions around the area. 

Lunch was at Shabusai. Inside one of the malls connecting to the train station (sorry I know I am not of much help hahahah but details are fuzzy by now and I wasn't in a very good shape at that point in the trip). Shabu shabu and sukiyaki buffet with free flow veggies. Meat portion left a lot to be desired hahaha though it was ok for me coz I was sharing with Stel and I took all her meat (she was vegan-ing that day). Interesting choice of soup base though. Stel and I had a konbu one (which had like one solitary piece of konbu floating inside the soup and hence practically tasteless until veggie and meat lent it flavor) and a soya milk one which is pretty interesting. Essentially these are the only two vegetarian friendly choices, the rest had some spicy tonkotsu broth thing.

Out in the sun to the Tennoji zoo next! Honestly wasn't expecting to visit a zoo but it fits in to our schedule and itinerary so why not. 

Zoo closes at 5pm and we crossed the road to the Shinsekai area. Intention was to get to the Tsutenkaku Tower and be up there for sunset. Which worked out very well for us even though there was like a half an hour queue to go up. There's also souvenir shops selling a huge variety of Pretz and Pocky products which triggered another round of souvenir sweeping.

Dinner was kushikatsu or deep fried Japanese skewers. Went to this chain called Daruma which had a few branches in the Shinsekai area (as well as in Dotonbori area). Wasn't filling though so we resolved to go back to Dotonbori for supper. Squeezed in a trip to Hozenji temple first though, then decided to split up - Stel, Val and KH at Daiso, while San, Kevin and I lugged our purchases back to the Airbnb first, and to reunite for supper later.

Ramen supper - went to Ichiran! Definitely a very interesting solo dining concept. Queues are long even at that hour, order sheet was really fussy in my opinion hahaha. While it's solo dining the partitions can be pulled back so if you come in groups they can accommodate you. Which is what happened to us in the end though we dined in groups of 3 and 2. I think the ramen is nice though, can't tell much coz I pretty much had a blocked nose the entire day which affected my tastebuds. 

Don Quijote is just next door and I think we were all kicking ourselves for discovering this so late into our trip hahaha. So spent some time in here as well before calling it a day.