A home for my words.

The third stop on my Japan trip was Osaka, famous for its kansai culture and epic food scene. The latter is particularly important because that’s what I spent most of my time doing there: eating. Lucky for me, my longest-held language partner had called the region home for his entire life. When he saw my two playful “Japanese food bingo cards,” it put a battery in his back. We met up each day during my trip and he spearheaded my adventure towards accomplishing both bingo cards.

There were plenty delicious plates I didn’t get to snap a photo of. That’s because I’d capture an image of the first plate to arrive before diving in and then I would become too consumed by…well, consuming >.< 

Tsuchime / Hammered Jewelry Making

In my research of what to do once I made it to Osaka (which included directly asking my language partner), it seemed most items on my to-do list were simply food-related. While that’s great, I wondered what I would do with the hours necessary for digesting all of that food. This led me to find a hammered jewelry-making experience. I’m a fan of rings, particularly thin ones, and I love the chance to hand-make something small that I can keep and/or wear as a reminder of a travel experience, so this was perfect. I was pretty much in and out, but I left the store in love with my new ring and wore it every day of my trip. I still wear it routinely to this day.

Expo ’70 Commemorative Park

Thankfully, my language exchange partner came up with an idea for a park to visit since I love being in the peace of the outdoors. What I wasn’t prepared for was the intimidatingly large crowds we had to get through to find a quiet place. As it turns out, there were two back-to-back events in the park’s concert space. A famous Japanese comedian happened to be there as well. I saw people taking photos with him and it was my language partner who explained who he was. 

That night, we walked through the streets of illuminated trees. I was so surprised to see a Krispy Kreme that I got us each a glazed donut and waited to enjoy mine later on that night. The following day, I went out and adventured. It was a Monday and my language exchange partner would be working, but we had plans to meet up at yet another izakaya at night 🙂

I kicked my day off with one of those cutesy cafes for breakfast. On Sunday, the small cafe had a long wait time so my language partner and I had to skip it, but Monday was much smoother. After that, I headed to Osaka Castle to soak in its views, but made sure to skiddaddle once the crowds grew thicker.

I had one of those travel fail moments during lunchtime where things weren’t going so smoothly at another cafe I was interested in visiting. I just decided to bolt back to my hotel rather than force myself through the awkwardness. It was my vacation time after all. I ended up getting another store-bought bento with two types of rice, a salmon filet, and a glazed meatball, among other yummy things. 

Back on the horse and satiated, I later set out for the Namba Yasaka Shrine as a meeting point for a tour I bought. Without it being the meeting point, I wouldn’t have had the chance to see the shrine, so that was cool. My guide walked me back to his studio where I learned a ton about tea, how to properly brew and serve it, as well as how to infuse alcohol with tea leaves (which I intend to do)!

Then, the izakaya worship resumed. Of note were the fried oysters which I thought about for days afterwards and how surprisingly good the chunk of butter sliced on top of an eel roll was. I thought the butter was cheese at first and found it strange, so my language partner was happy to see how pleasantly surprised I ended up being with the taste. 

After that, we hit up Big Echo for karaoke (let the record state I was tearing the house down with those Nicki Minaj songs lol). We even tried our hand at a duet of Meg Thee Stallion’s collab with Yuki Chiba. How’s that for language exchange?!

We sadly had to bid each other farewell after that as I was off to Koyasan the following day.