Day 2: Osaka (Namba Walk)

Woke up late – around 7:30. We are still not feeling too well, so we decided to spend most of the day shopping indoors in shopping centres to avoid the cold weather outside.

Topped up our Manaca cards, and did a trial run from Namba station to Shin-Osaka on the Midosuji subway line to exchange our Japan Rail pass vouchers and reserve Shinkansen tickets. There’s not much to see in Shin Osaka apart from restaurants, so returned back to Namba station, and had lunch at Tenya Akasuka Tendon again (another shop very close to Dotonbori Bridge). This time had the tendon, which consists of whitebait, prawn, green bean, pumpkin

After lunch, we visited Namba Walk – an underground mall that looks like it has seen better days. They have a Hello Kitty spring promotion, but it hasn’t started yet, and most of the shops are closed. We took some photos anyway around the Hello Kitty signage.

After that we visited Bic Camera, which has 14 floors and a pachinko parlour in the basement. Despite the name, Bic Camera is more like an electronics superstore (actually, they even sell food, cosmetics, even whitegoods). Yes, they actually still do sell cameras, but they only occupy a small section of one floor. Bought some goodies here, including bicycle lights from Cateye, a pink bicycle lock, Hello Kitty luggage tag, Hazuki reading glasses, Artisan and Artist camera strap.