Japan [Day 10 - Osaka]

The majestic Osaka Castle

Shitennoji

In the morning, we took the subway to Tennoji station. We're going to Shitennoji shrine which is located nearby. Tennoji is also famous for its zoo. We skipped the zoo and went to the shrine instead. Going to the zoo might consume us half day. After 10 minute walk from Tennoji station, we arrived at Shitennoji. Too bad it was under renovation. Thus, we didn't get chance to take photos with the tower structure of the shrine.

Shitennoji front entrance

shrine compound

Osaka Castle

We took the subway again, from Shitennoji-Mae station to Tanimachiyochome. Osaka Castle is located not far from this station. We walked around 1.5 km to reach the castle. In front of the castle, there were a few food trucks and vendors selling takoyaki, grilled squids and matcha ice cream. We took our time to relax a bit before entering the castle. The entrance fee is 600 yen (adult). The castle has a few floors. We headed to the topmost first and enjoyed the view above, then gradually stepped down towards the ground level. We're allowed to take photos on certain floors only. The castle itself has become some sort of museum, all the historical event about the castle were displayed here via videos. You can rent a costume as well. For women, they had prepared kimonos while for men, only warrior costumes were available.

Triple selfie

600 yen ticket

View from above

Osaka Masjid

From the castle, we walked about 20 minutes to Osakajokitazume station and the toook the JR train to Mitejima station. Osaka Masjid is located quite distance from the station which required us to walk 1.4 km. The weather was still gloomy today. It rained lightly along our walk to the mosque. As usual, we performed our prayer in the mosque and visited the shop under the mosque. The prayer hall is located upstairs. I bought a couple box of tandoori spices here. Then, we hunted for a halal restaurant nearby. There are quite a number of halal restaurant nearby. There's one restaurant who offered us a chicken briyani set with a drink for 1000 yen only. So we went there. The restaurant name is Sitara Halal Restaurant. 

Namba Parks

After lunch, we headed back to the city. Emie wanted to go to the onsen (Japanese bath) so he went alone. Lukman and I continued touring the city where we visited Namba Parks. Namba Parks is a large shopping mall with beautiful gardens on top of it. Actually, to get nice photos, we had to go to another building nearby so that we could view the garden from far. Since we're inside the garden, we couldn't get the photos like we wanted, the stacked gardens. However, we did spent our time there calmly, before we entered the mall. Inside the mall, we dropped by a book store and some other shops before leaving the place.

Layers of gardens

Happy face, happy moment

Dotonbori

Back in Dotonbori, we're supposed to meet Emie here but because it's still early we just roamed around the area taking more photos, We toured around Dotonbori area to find halal dinner, there are a few halal restaurant around Dotonbori. We just had to use Google map to locate them. First we headed to a ramen restaurant but it was closed. Later we found KennyAsia restaurant which is a Malaysia/Singapore food restaurant but it was also closed. What an unlucky night. Haha..

Giant dragon

Giant clam

Giant hand holding giant sushi

Giant kuih apa tah

Giant crab

Silk Road Muqam Restaurant

At last, we found another restauran, Silk Road Muqam which is located not very far. We had dinner here, quite a unique Uighur restaurant. It's our first time eating Uighur food. We tried egg  fried rice (600 yen) here. The fried rice is made from the sushi rice, thus giving it a texture like sushi. Since I was still full of briyani from lunch, I managed to ate half portion of it only. We asked the brother to packed the balance for me to bring back to the hotel.

Lukman tak sabar meneliti menu yang dipaparkan

Lupa ambil gambar nasi goreng.

Hojenzi

There's a small shrine located in the hectic crowd in Dotonbori. We made a quick stop here to take photos. The shrine was quite pretty with the glowing lanterns hanging above. We saw a few tourists here as well. Thanks to the uncle who showed us the direction to the shrine. He overheard us talking about Hozenji when we were talking at the bridge near the Glico signboard.

....

Back in our hotel room, it's time to pack our belongings up. Our flight back to Kuala Lumpur was at 11am tomorrow. Since I bought a lot of stuff, I had to pack and repacked a few times before I was okay with the bags. I had one backpack and 2 small bags (to be check-in), while Lukman had one backpack and one guni. Emie had one backpack and two paperbags.