Japan 2025, July 14

It was a bit warm in the room overnight but acceptable, and more importantly was very quiet. I got up right at 7:00am for the opening of breakfast and there was already a queue of people who beat me to it. It was a well organised process and they assigned everyone to a table so there was no risk of losing your seat as a solo traveller.

I only got wedges from the slow line waiting at the cooked food section, then added some cereal, pastries, yoghurt, and juice. The selection was very good, but we'll see if they change anything tomorrow.

It was close to 8am by the time I got back to my room and looked for a small running route to start my daily activities. There looked to be a great river nearby, but it looked like there was major construction taking place along the whole south side. Instead I intended to see if I could get over to the north side and run along it.

The run ended up taking about 1.5 kilometres to get across the bridge with two slow pedestrian crossings along the way. On the other side I decided to go in the west direction and managed to get to just over 4 kilometres before there was a road crossing so turned back. The conditions were very warm and humid, although not quite as bad as last night.

My first stop of the day was Daimaru Umeda shopping centre to see all the video game merchandise stores on the 13th floor:

• Capcom
• Final Fantasy IX popup
• Nintendo
• Pokemon

After about 30 minutes of wandering around the Nintendo shop looking for unique items I didn't come away with much. There was lots of notebooks, pens, plush toys and towels, but not many magnets or really unique items. The same items were generally repeated for each of the major brands - Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Mario, Pikmin, Zelda, etc.

Finally leaving that store I tried the Final Fantasy popup next, but it hardly had anything at all. They were selling magnets for about $7 but following the popular trend they were in unmarked foil so you didn't know which one you'd be buying.

Next was Capcom which was also disappointing due to almost no Mega Man (Rock Man) or Street Fighter things. The Biohazard (Resident Evil) selection was quite limited too.

Finally I went to the Pokemon store which was the biggest, but already had a large queue. Due to the long wait time to purchase I only had a quick look through and didn't inspect everything in detail, the amount of product was a little overwhelming.

That was it the for morning shopping, which took a bit longer than usual, and then I was off on the Osaka Loop line to Osaka Castle. The station was a fair distance from the castle so I stopped in at a Lawson convenience store for a lunch snack and drink along the way.

First I came to the north entrance which is a ticketed entry so you can't get very close, but still take some good photos. Then I walked around to the south entrance where you can get much closer. I don't think I went in last time either, and since a lot of the interior was a recreation it wasn't on the top of my list of things to do.

It was a bit of a walk again out of the other side of the castle grounds to a nearby subway station to head towards Namba and Dotonbori. While I was on the train the rain had started for the day, but a lot of the Namba area is undercover, including the whole Shinsaibashi-Suji street.

Along the way I found the well know highlights like the big crab, the Glico man, and the large Don Quijote store. The Don Quijote store had several floors with too much stuff, but I didn't find any good souvenirs to buy.

I continued along towards Shinsaibashi and passed an Adidas, New Balance, and Nike store but found no unique Japan clothes for sale. Also nearby was another Daimaru connected to a Parco, which had two floors of pop culture and video game stores too. There was another Capcom store with similar stuff, and a place selling a range of Studio Ghibli products, but again nothing I was too excited by.

It was getting late in the afternoon by now and my legs were feeling quite tired from standing and walking, so I headed back to the subway bound for Umeda. I had a few other possible things on the list for the day, but they were all a bit further away by now:

• Amerikamura
• Namba Yasaka shrine
• Nipponbashi Denden town
• Tsutenkaku district

Getting off the train at Umeda station was another big maze since it also connects to Osaka station and several shopping malls around the two stations. Even when I have a reasonable idea where I was and where to go at street level, it's just so much more complicated while underground.

I didn't feel like searching around for a restaurant nearby so just took an assortment of food back to the hotel again to rest for a while. The rain had gotten much heavier during the latest train ride also, so it was good I didn't have to walk far outside to make it back to the hotel entrance.

After recovering with some food and writing down my notes for the day the rain had started to clear up. I had a booking for any time today for the Kuchu Teien observatory at the Umeda sky building so decided to go before it was too late and completely dark. The building was less than one kilometre away, so that was a relief after a busy day.

Before leaving for the sky building I had a quick check on Klook for an aquarium ticket for tomorrow afternoon. They sell them in advance online for slots after 3pm only, but the first tickets still available weren't until after 6pm, which seemed a bit late, particularly with a big day afterwards on Wednesday.

The official website instead had a very narrow 15 minute entry time for bookings, which seemed a bit risky. I had been thinking of going to the aquarium first and then to Nara since I had no time deadlines there. The aquarium was a lot closer to the hotel too, so the travel time was more predictable than doing the opposite.

So after weighing up my options I decided to try buying a ticket through the aquarium website for the early morning, but every attempt failed using both credit cards, returning a generic error. Since the slots up until 10:30am had nearly sold out I wasn't sure what the situation would be if I tried to just turn up and buy a ticket in the morning. That uncertainty meant I was back to starting the day at Nara, then maybe trying my luck at the aquarium in the afternoon.

The rain was back again, and increased a lot as I headed out towards the Umeda sky building. I didn't pack an umbrella and decided I'd just buy one later if it was really necessary. Nearly every store sells them, but they are usually the non-collapsible clear plastic ones, which work better, but are a lot harder to carry around, and to pack into a suitcase. I did bring a running rain jacket though, so that still helped a bit.

The trip up to the top of the observatory started with a slightly scary glass elevator ride until reaching the 35th floor. After collecting my ticket there was a indoor viewing area on the 39th floor, being able to walk around and get a 360 view. A lot of people there had food and drinks and were taking up all the window seats, although with the rain it wasn't a good sunset view.

The 40th level was outdoors, but it was quite wet and a little dark, so it wasn't the best view. I took a couple of laps around and got some photos, but the rest of the skyline for Osaka is not the most memorable, and the castle was not visible either.

On the way out there was a large gift shop with a lot of products, and a great magnet selection. I managed to take care of three tasks at once by getting a Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka magnet all with a similar design. I won't be going to Kyoto this time, but it fills in for the previous Japan trip when I stopped there.

The step count was over 25,000 for the day, which is a bit of a concern already for the first day.

Public transport = 660 yen

Steps = 25,264 with 8.4 kilometres running