Our 187th entry in this blog is our trip to Osaka, Japan. I have already wrote some details of the places in Osaka that we have visited in previous posts. This is the cumulative version, the entire Osaka happenings 🙂

This is our first time to ride the overnight bus. We cannot afford the bullet train! haha. The shinkansen will cost us around 18k yen each (and there is 4 of us) for one-way trip, while this Willer Express is only around 5k yen each. And we are also excited to try it!

Willer Express is a major highway bus company operating in Japan since 2005 with routes spanning almost the entire country. We will definitely use this again for our future long trips 🙂 This Willer bus have a stop in Umeda, so we immediately stored our things to the locker stations of the bus stop and headed to our first place to visit. The Osaka Castle.

There was quite a walk from the station to the Osaka castle, but we enjoyed strolling the new place. Ate Rei was imagining like a Disney castle is gonna show up soon. hehe 🙂

After exploring the Osaka castle inside and out, we strolled back to the station through another walking route. And we got to see this place full of pink trees. I was shocked why no one else is around, just us. We did a lot of photos and had a sort-of picnic (as we did not prepare picnic mats). This small place, filled with pink trees, for me is really amazing. Blessed be! 🙂

And then we headed to our next stop, the Osaka Aquarium. But we had lunch first nearby the aquarium place.

The Kaiyukan in Osaka is the largest aquarium in Japan and at the same time one of the largest in the world. It is located in the Minato district near the port area of ​​Osaka. We were amazed by the whale that we saw in the aquarium. It was really big, even if it was still a baby.

After the aquarium visit, we headed to a shopping street in Dotonbori area, the bright heart of Osaka. We were there for snacks. hehe 🙂 There were a lot of sweets and yummy smelling foods it took us a while to decide which one to choose.

After our sumptuous snacks, we headed back to Osaka station in time to check-in our booked apartment and rest our feet from over walking.

We stayed at Bijou Suites Sorriso. We love this place. Each of us have our own bed! No need for bed sharing this time. 🙂 It is a walking distance from our bus stop earlier, where we placed our things in the locker, and walking distance from Umeda Sky Tower. We are so ready for tomorrow’s visit to…

Universal Studios Japan! yehey. We came here early, park not opened yet, to check on nearby areas. And when we got inside, time is never enough to explore the wide area of USJ. Ate Rei is so happy to visit Harry Potter, and Sai is also very much happy to see Dinosaurs at Jurassic Park. The new Super Nintendo World was also fun! They all have cool rides and not much crowd this time 🙂

After our entire day inside USJ, riding their cool rides from sun up ’til sun down, we headed back to our rented apartment and everyone snored to sleep 🙂 The next day will be…

Umeda Sky Building. This is one of their tallest building in Osaka and one of the most recognizable landmarks. It was very relaxing seeing the clouds that is now nearer to us rather than the roofs of the buildings. hehe.

That was our last stop for Osaka. We are now heading to Narra! Aja! 🙂