Japan Day 2: Namba and Dotonbori

River cruise on the canal. I think they're part of the Osaka Amazing Pass

It's summer so day got brighter way early at 5 am. Added jet lag to that and I was awake by 6 am. By 7 we were already talking about breakfast. Surprisingly hubby was suggesting ramen for breakfast. At home in San Jose, he would suggest other things if I brought up ramen suggestion. So I actually thought we would not have any ramen on this trip.

I looked up Ichiran ramen and found out that they open 24 hours. That was great news because the thought of waiting till 11 for the restaurant to open just made me grew weaker. So we got ready and left our apartment.

Shin Osaka station was packed with salarymen and career women. I noticed most of men wore similar outfit, white long sleeve and black pants.Women were not as many as men. Everyone move methodically almost like half dazed. While waiting for trains everyone heads down looking at their devices.



We found our way to Ichiran ramen by the Dotonbori canal. It was 9:30 but there was line outside. Wow. We were given an order form which had like different languages, Japanese, English, Chinese, etc. We customize our bowl of noodle using options available on that form. Garlic, green onion, extra pork were among options given.

For the full story of Ichiran, read it here.

Rikuro ojisan no mise - make sure to try this Osaka specialty

After that we walked around and went down my list for the next item which was the Rikuro cheesecake. The jiggly cheesecake has been the object of a lot of YouTube videos. We got there early so there was no line. We got in and out within 5 minutes.

For the Rikuro cheesecake post, check it out here.

With the ramen and cheesecake deposited into our tummies, nothing left to do other than walking it off to make more room. So we walked to check out Kuromon Ichiba market. We didn't try out anything here because we were still full. If you are seafood lover make sure to visit this market. There were grill misc seafood like scallop, octopus, prawn, etc. You could also get some seafood related gifts here like dried anchovy, tiny crab crackers, etc. We didn't get any because we were not sure if we'll be allowed to bring in the US.

Kuromon Ichiba market - heaven for seafood lovers

The day got hotter as we walked back towards Dotonbori area. There was a three storey mall just at the end of the canal so we decided to stop by and cool off. There was nothing much in that mall other than a big drugstore on the third floor, a clothing store, and a tea shop and eye glasses store on ground floor.

So after about twenty minutes over there we moved on. There were benches by the Dotonbori canal. And the breeze was so nice. So we spent there people watching and cooling off until we were ready for the next eating adventure which was takoyaki.

Takoyaki at Creo-ru

Read the posting on takoyaki at Creo-ru.

In between the takoyaki snacks and dinner time, we managed to check out the Donquijote at Dotonbori canal. We got a duffel bag thinking that we may need it once we did some shopping. But it turned out we decided to stuff the duffel bag into our suitcase for easy transport on the Shinkansen later on.

We got early dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant named Houzenji Sanpei, still at the Dotonbori area.

Okonomiyaki at Houzenji Sanpei

More detail on the okonomiyaki dinner, see the posting about Houzenji Sanpei.

Then we were back at the Dotonbori canal waiting for the lantern posted along canal to be lit. But even at 8 pm they were still dark. So we decided that we waited long enough.