Day 4: Osaka Castle and Aqua Liner River Cruise (Osaka)

29th March 2009

Today is our last day in Osaka, and also our last day having breakfast in Yougendo.

I had nara eggs with sliced mushroom, a bowl of rice, miso soup and fruits cut (fuji apple), OJ and coffee.

MrComot had the same menu like yesterday.

We planned to go to Kyoto and check out time is at 10AM. Since we still have few places to see in Osaka, we checked out first and placed our bag in Yougendo's locker, and off to Osaka Castle!

Osaka Castle and Aqua Liner River Cruise is next to each other, so we hop on the boat first.

The route: Oji - Tennoji - Osakajokoen - 10 minutes walk to Aqua Liner
Admission: 1800 yen

On the way to Aqua Liner

The area is like a big garden where you can stroll along the river having a good walk. It was weekend and the park is very lively with mini stalls selling stuff, mostly snacks. There are takoyaki, fried mee, grilled squid, grilled corn, etc and the air filled with the smell of delicious food. I bought a pack of takoyaki from one of the stalls.

Doing takoyaki. They use boiled tentacles instead of baby squid, corn, cabbage, and red raddish. I was so hungry that I quickly gulping the hot tako and forget to snap some pics :( However, the takoyaki is a bit bland, maybe because they do it very fast and a bit cincai-cincai as the queue is quite long and increasing. A pack of takoyaki (consist of 6 balls) is 500 yen (around RM20). Kalau Jusco sini jual RM10 pun menggelupur ok.

Few stalls are selling pictures of HOT Taiwanese guy and girls are flocking over the stalls. Seriously I don't get it what's with this craze. Don't you think Japanese guy is hotter? hehehe

Aqua Liner is a sight seeing boat and will bring you along Okawa river and goes under bridges, last about for 1 hour.

There is this one very low bridge that the boat had to 'shrink' itself and kitaorg gila jakun ok.

The roof goes down when we are about to reach the low bridge. If you are a very tall person, you definitely need to slouch a bit.

The roof goes up after passing the bridge (and at its normal)

View from the boat. Sakura is aloooonnnngg the river, UNFORTUNATELY, they are still budding :(

An early bloomer. If all bloom like this, it will be amazing!

A group of youth canoeing

Even though the Sakura is still at early stage, the park already full with people camping.

After the cruising, we went to Osaka Castle for some historical input hehe.

The route: 20 minutes walk from Aqua Liner port
Admission: 600 yen

While walking, I stumbled upon a stall selling grilled squid and it smells heavenly.

Pan-grilled fresh squid

The juicy tentacles

Guess which one I grabbed?

Of course la the tentacles! Yummy!!!

Us in front of the castle

Full view

The castle is rather interesting, it has 8 floors and each floor displaying different material about Osaka history. There is war section, weapon section, purely document section, etc. Unfortunately, photos are strictly prohibited in most level (I think only 2 floors allow snapping but there isn't much to take pun). Another thing is, since it is weekend, the crowd is insanely big. In fact, we had to climb the stairs up to 8th level (had to stop at 6th, giler takde stamina haha) because you have to wait for hours if you want to take the lift.

This castle built on top of a hill embraced by small river and beautiful trees. It's really breathtaking.

Me under the cherry blossom tree. Can you see the river? Just imagine the castle is surrounded by this calm and serene moat. This picture simply doesn't do the justice.

While enjoying the view (and eating our onagiri) we saw a lot of people eating ice cream and I was thinking, "Tak sejuk ke?". The temp is about 10 degrees and they are having it macam sedap giler. So I pestered MrComot to buy me one.

The icecream shop

Our strawberry icecream

I was so excited having the icecream, so called cool lah, mcm local je kan BUTTTT once I dig my mouth into it, I almost screaming ok, IT'S FREAKING COLD!! Hahaha. Seriously, giler sejuk. I thought the icecream is something unusual like made with yogurt kah, lagipun the name itself is softcream, but but but it is a NORMAL cold icecream! We were struggling to finish one cone and end up shivering like mad for a good 10 mins haha!

Fake smile! We were freezing ok haha

We headed back to Yougendo around 5PM and pass the park again. There are a few groups of teenagers performing their songs (like our underground band).

Siap ada big speaker bagai ok

After picked-up our bags from Yougendo, we headed to Kyoto (sayonara Osaka! sob sob) for our next adventure.

The route: Oji - Nara - Kyoto - Gojo (Karasuma Line) - 8 mins walk to Kazariya.

From Nara to Kyoto took us about 1 hour and total journey is about 1 1/2 hours. We stayed in budget guesthouse named Kazariya in Gojo.

Doze off early that night and our dinner was instant noodle (asam laksa and curry)! :D