We were able to catch the 11:02am Thunderbird train from Kanazawa to Osaka. We arrived at the station, and gave our passes to the JR attendant, and they issued the tickets for the journey with no issue at all. We cannot recommend the JR pass enough!!!! How to get a JR pass. We arrived at Shin-Osaka, just outside Osaka city, at 2:05pm. To check times for trains we also recommend Hyperdia, it’s an amazing tool!

(To Book Train Travel in Japan Click Here)

Our airbnb was at Taisho station, but we had a hard time finding the JR circle line at Osaka Station. We eventually found an information desk to help (the Osaka station is like an underground city).

From Taisho Station it was a 15 minute walk to our airbnb, but we had difficulty finding the airbnb too. Once inside the airbnb, we had difficulty “checking in” on the dumbest app I hate ever used. You had to photography your passport and then your face to confirm that you were, in fact you. The app wouldn’t recognize ANY of our faces. PLUS the airbnb seemed to be recording the volume of our voices the entire stay! This made us feel incredibly uncomfortable for the three days that we stayed there.

We left the airbnb and walked to Dotombori, the crazy street of night food and mayhem!!

We had delicious sushi sets (I had tuna) for first dinner. Later on we had takoyaki (the deep fried octopus balls) I’m still not a fan of them! We then bought some beers from the kombini and sat under the bridge, while watching the running Glico man (an icon of Osaka) change colour.

There was a town dance contest going on, so we watched groups of high school girls dance and sing.

We explored some arcades and did another purikura (photobooth).

Also, we stopped by to see the iconic moss covered boy statue at Hozenji Temple. There was a temple ceremony going on, and the tiny shrine was filled with people and religious figures chanting and playing horns. The tiny wooden structure was occupied with a giant fire, in which the chanting men were throwing and burning the ema (wooden prayer tiles) from the shrine.