Day 3: Kaiyukan Aquarium, Umeda Sky Building & Dotonbori (Osaka)

28th March 2009

As usual, we had our breakfast in Yougendo around 830am.

My food:
Buckwheat pancake with spinach and cheese, shimeji soup, fruit cut (fuji apple), OJ and coffee.

MrComot's:

2 Nara eggs - scrambled (I don't know what's the different between Nara egg and our egg but their yolk is rich orange instead of yellow), sauteed shimeji mushroom with butter, OJ and coffee.

Both portions are scrumptious and I never know spinach can be this tasty. Since we wanted to go out after prayer, we had a nice morning stroll along Oji. We start our journey around 1130am to Kaiyukan Aquarium.

The route: Oji - Tennoji - Bentencho - Osakako - 15 mins walking to Kaiyukan
Admission: 2000 yen

(Notes: In case you wonder, the route is not how many stations you cross, but how many station exchange you have to make. It may look hassle but trust me, it's not as all the stations reside under the same roof. You only need to change at different gates. And there is no one definite route to that final destination. There are few options depending on your cost, time, etc etc. We planned our journey using this website (our guesthouse has internet connection) and just need to know our starting point and end point)

When we arrived the aquarium, it's already noon, so we decided to eat somewhere nearby. There is a mall with foodcourt inside so we just strike our best to find the food. Even though this is tourist area, again we were invited with ZERO english. I was like "OMG, berani mati ok nak makan kat food court mcm ni".

Finally, we settled for this ebi donbori (again, takde benda lain, ebi, donbori, ebi, donbori haha) but seriously it's tasty!

Just want to show you the foodcourt. Seriously scary ok. You can't understand a word and depending on pictures only. Oh ya, also with one vocab "iekk nikku". Scary scary...

In front of the aquarium

Kaiyukan is one of the largest aquarium in the world and their theme is Ring of Fire (Pan Pacific Volcanic Zone) and the Ring of Life (Pan Pacific Life Zone).

Otter lair

The penguins look very healthy, maybe because of the cold weather. If I'm not mistaken, this is the Emperor type as they got the yellow lining at the neck and at the head)

Dolphins playing. One of them is drinking the drop-water.

MrComot with a bunch of sardines. Since the aquarium is big, you get to see they move in a flock, you know, like in the movie where all of them swim in one direction like tornado.

Their signature. Sunfish. It is a very rare one. Can you see that the tail is like currypuff?

And it is humongous! Just compare it to swimmer.

Some weird looking but breathtaking jellyfish.

We finished the visit with playing with some rayfish. They got this big shallow pool where you can dip your hands and touch the stingray! The skin is so soft and a bit slippery like thick moss.

We spent till evening and continue our journey to Umeda Sky Building to catch sunset in Osaka. Actually, there is a wild flower park next to the building but since it is still very cold, no flowers blooming yet.

The route: Osakako - Bentencho - Osaka - 25 mins walking to Umeda Sky Building

Admission: 700 yen

We reached a bit late and missed the sunset by 10 minutes! Wawawawawawa

You can view the whole Osaka from here

Osaka at night

It is very romantic and cool. If you go to Osaka, don't miss this.

Going down. Escalator for this building is very steep! MrComot tak berani tgk bawah haha

After enjoying the late sunset, we off to Dotonbori, a single street alongside Dotonbori Canal, full of eatineries and clubs, also known as Neon District. In Dotonbori, most of the shops has English menu, so it's quite easy for you to pick, unfortunately, most of them serve pork as their main dish so we decided to eat at the sushi bar. Just a tips, original sushi bar doesn't serve pork or meat (even if they have, normally will be chicken) and tempura is fried with vegetable oil (unless the culture evolve and they use lard, I don't know huhu).

The route: Osaka - Imamiya - Namba - 15 mins walking to the street

In front of no-idea sushi shop

Studying the menu. What is thisssss???!

Later they gave us English menu. Finally! And they also have online site!

We ordered sushi plate and vegetable + ebi tempura only to know that the sushi is TOTALLY raw!! Ok ok don't get me wrong. There is two menu saying sushi or sashimi. So being the clever me, I thought sushi is cooked and sashimi is raw. And tell you what, I do eat sushi, but only compromised sushi like in Sushi King, meaning yg dah masak. Mentah mentah ni tak reti ok.

Look at the bloody TUNA!

The thing is, I tried to eat (so called want to taste the authentic sushi) but seriously I don't get it, how come other people loves it but I can't even chew it. I mean, it's TOUGH okkk! How to chew? Do you guys just swallow it? Wawawa I don't know how to eat sushi *sob sob*

So we asked the chef to cook it, boleh? And communication problem again as we don't know how to tell them.

MrComot: Can you cook this a bit?
Waiter: Wasabi?

Haha it's very funny. We did bring phrase book installed in MrComot's Dopod but his phone buat perangai that the Kanji writing didn't come out (MrComot's phone is 4 years old!). So we have to reboot lah, restart la etc etc but still doesn't come out so we just try our best to read it in English and the translation for cook is "ni-rue".

MrComot: Ni-rue
Waiter: Ni-rue? Haiit!

We were like, she gets it kah? But redha je lah and tadaaa!

Ebi, fish (don't know what kind), tuna, octopus.

They slightly cook it. If you notice, I ate the raw salmon ok. Anyway, mesti theyols pelik, apa ni makan sushi tapi masak hahaha. But I don't care, I can't!

So, phrase book is really important when you are in Japan. All you need is keyword.

We also had this ebi and vegetable tempura.

Sushi is quite expensive in Japan (comparing to their other menu). Maybe because it is very fresh and considered crafts as they have to roll it? In developed country, labour is very expensive as most of the thing is automated. But also, maybe we went to the wrong shops :)

A plate of 5 pieces of sushi and one set tempura costs us 3100 yen (around RM100++). Just imagine how much we can eat with that amount of bill in other sushi outlet in Malaysia? Anyway, the tempura is ver-r-r-y good and I can't get enough of them.