Osaka Day 3: Last Day in Osaka

It was our last full day in Osaka and we were gonna make the most out of it! We started off our morning by pigging out at Kurumon Ichiba Market!

Our first food stop! Onigiri Burger! This shop really know how to promote themselves by encouraging customers to take photo with their signage and post on social media in exchange for a drink. Also, they purposely switch off the lights and performed a "fire show" when we ordered the kobe beef burger. They also encouraged us to take a video, knowing that millennials like us love these things and would certainly Instagram it.

A photo with the signature Kuromon Ichiba lantern

Of course, we must surely have seafood when we come to Kuromon Ichiba market! 

At our second food stop, we had abalone and torched king crab legs!

The abalone is awesome, as for the king crab, I still preferred the hotpot style where the meat would be soft and fluffy. As for this torched one, it tasted a tad dry and charred...

Huge seafood replicas could be seen hanging from the ceiling

 And we end off our meal with a drink and dessert! I hate to use this word but the orange drink tasted NASTY! There was even much juice in it and all we tasted was bitter pulp... On the other hand, I finally got to try creamia ice cream and it was the best! Soft, creamy and milky! The biscuit is delicious and it reminded me of Hokkaido's Shiroi Koibito / 白い恋人 chocolate. 

After the hearty brunch session, we went back to Dotonbori to check out the Mameshiba Cafe! Just nice, there were still slots and we were in time for the next slot! 

For 880 yen, we were given 30 minutes to spend in the cafe and one free drink. However, the time passed super fast and its really hard to get the dogs attention! The shibas behaved like cats, where they do not interact much with humans and do not let you touch them.

The Shibas are so photogenic! They looked like they are smiling!

The Pigg and the doge

It was so hard to even get near these furkids, as soon as I touched it, it ran away...

Last few pictures of this black shiba before our time was up

Without wasting further time, we headed to Osaka Castle... and it started raining... as the castle was quite a distance, we decided to pay for a buggy ride which will send us to the entrance of the castle grounds. From there, we still have to walk into the compound before reaching the castle itself.  

This nice picture is actually taken by a friendly local who came up to us and asked if we wanted a photo. So nice of her to even volunteer without us asking!

The rain did not stop locals or tourists from coming to the castle. As we had bought the Osaka One-Day Amazing Pass, we were able to skip the crazily long queue at the ticket counter and head straight into the castle! We decided to head up to the conservatory which is located right at the top of the castle, and we had to climb flights of stairs!

 The view from above is indeed worth it, we were able to see all four directions and the humans all look so tiny! 

More cherry blossoms are in bloom at Osaka Castle!

So happy to see sakuras blooming on our last full day in Japan!

Constantly on the chase for Sakuras~

And we are done with sakura chasing! I am satisfied. 

 We then travelled to Umeda for the Pokemon Centre! Before we went up, we decided to get some light bites at Daimaru's food basement as we did not have a proper lunch.

We finally tried the buns from 551 Horai which Pigg always wanted to try as we kept seeing it around. Pork buns are never to my liking so... 

And we tried the cheese tarts and cheese cake for desserts, it was soooo good!

Tummies filled, we went upstairs for the Pokemon Center, and unlike the one in Kyoto, we were not as amazed or excited for Umeda's as it was quite crowded and messy... Pigg did not get anything from the store either and we ended up shopping at Uniqlo instead.

Afterwards, we headed off to HEP FIVE for our free ferris wheel ride as it is covered by the Osaka Amazing Pass! It started raining again and the view was not as clear.

On board the ferris wheel! There's actually a speaker where you can plug and play music but as we are using iPhone, we did not have the round pin cable.

Next, we decided to go have dinner at Pizza Ball House, where we could make our own Takoyaki! 

The staff actually helped us to add the batter and ingredients before letting us take over with the turning of the Takoyaki. We kind of fail in doing so and we let the staff take back over, and wow, she was super fast and skilled in making the takoyaki.

We also ordered this pizza okonomiyaki, which came readily made and it was delicious! Even more so with the bonito flakes!

As Osaka is well known for Takoyaki and Okonomiyaki, I would definitely recommend this place if you want to try experiencing how to make those balls! The food is good, even more so since we tried "making" it ourselves, and affordable too with a wide selection of flavors to choose from. It was just next to HEP FIVE mall, but a pro tip is to go earlier to avoid the queues as it is quite popular too! 

To end off the night, we went to Harukas 300 observatory to enjoy the night skyline of Osaka from 60 storeys above! 

Taking in as much as we can of this city in our final hours left in Osaka.

They also had this light projection which looks really nice 

Interactive projections to play around, the bubbles comes out upon touch 

 And that's how we maximised our last day to the fullest in Osaka! We had wanted to go Shinsekai but we decided against it as the rain was still quite heavy. Oh well... the weather had been good to us for the rest of our trip and I'm super grateful for that

And here's me signing off our final blog post in Osaka with a selfie in the toilet with the best view.