Continued from Osaka Day 1.

Woke up this morning to a raining day. It’s expected to rain on and off while we are in Osaka.

Forgot to pick up coffee from the convenience store last night. So, making a coffee run at a near by convenience store.

We are well stocked on egg sandwiches (sandos).

Zima!! They still sell them here in Japan.

Kids on their ipads during a slow raining morning. It’s a really nice slow morning that I think we all need right now.

Alright, a break in the rain, let’s go. We just need to make it the 3 blocks until we are in a covered arcade.

Made it, we are…super dry.

The kids wanted to do some shopping, they’ve been saving some shopping for Japan (especially PL. She has been really looking forward to shopping in Japan). Well, kids, here we go.

Capsule toy vending machines.

So many choices.

Momo will get a new outfit that she’ll hate. Dumb mutt.

Little KL has been super into soccer, and wants a Japanese jersey. We managed to find a kid size 2026 Japan Olympics jersey here for him, cool.

Curie’s new hair tie.

Pascal’s new hair tie.

A lot of people here in Osaka right now. It’s becoming apparent pretty quickly that this is no longer the Japan of the past. It’s now filled with a lot more tourists than ever.

Can’t help but get green tea flavored everything.

Resell apparel shop. RL is always obsessed with secondhand goods.

So cool, everything is so organized and color coded.

If only Americans were so detail orientated.

That Lowe’s bucket came a long way from home.

Swatch store. Both me and Little KL got a watch.

Now, we visit a mall.

And we are heading to a store on one of the higher floors.

Boom!!! Pokemon Center!!

Go kids, attack!

Go kids, attack!

Cool, studio Ghibli store here too. We’ll all attack here.

You can peak into the tree and there’s a little diorama in there. RL is really into dioramas at the moment.

Only now as I’m looking at this photo did we notice the sign, “DO NOT TOUCH” all around this….oops. We are terrible.

Lunch spot.

Lots of courtesy options for stuff in Japan.

The kids have been begging for sushi every meal and they’ve been begging for rotating sushi. Fine, we’ll eat rotating sushi.

A little bit of a wait since we’ve got a larger than usual group.

Let’s eat! Our table isn’t actually next to a rotating sushi belt, so everything was ordered via a tablet. They actually do have a conveyor next to us that could in theory could send items to us, but it wasn’t being used and all of our food was brought to us old school style, by a human.

They scanned all the plates, then handed us a little device with a QR code for our ticket that we’ll pay at the front.

The kids are crazy. I would say it’s because they are excited to be in Japan, but that’s only partially true. They are still crazy even if we are at home doing nothing.

Alright, let’s take the elevator down and do some more shopping/browsing.

After shopping and lunch, back to our apartment hotel to check out the bounty.

Shopping is great and all…except now we’ll need to bring it all back on our backs.

It’s almost dinner time and we’ve got a reservation. After lunch time it was raining hard enough that we ended up buying two umbrellas to make it back to our hotel. And now, it’s still raining, but good thing our hotel has a a bunch of umbrellas for people to borrow.

For dinner, we’ll need to take a short train ride.

This is the first group of salary men I’ve seen this whole trip. I remember coming in the past and just seeing hordes of men in dark suits coming back from drinking sessions all the time. Japan’s changing, the old ways are slowly disappearing.

A much more business like part of town.

Found our dinner spot, housed in the 3rd floor of a kinda grimy nondescript building.

I think this is the spot.

We go through the door, and it’s like a whole different world. An 8 Seat, Michelin 1 starred restaurant that specializes in yakitori of one particular type of pure breed Japanese chicken. Talk about niche.

The chef is also the owner, and as far as we could tell, it’s just him and one other helper who worked mainly behind the scenes.

That little charcoal yakitori grill will cook all the chicken we’ll eat tonight.

 

Super delicate glassware used in this restaurant. I was afraid of breaking it just from holding it, not to mention Little KL, PL, and CL breaking their water glasses.

Every skewer is very carefully seasoned perfectly. This is Japan tradition and precision at its finest.

There are 8 seats, but for this seating the 5 of us have the whole restaurant. Nice to have our personal Michelin starred chef and the whole restaurant to ourselves. What a treat.

RL examining the pottery at the Michelin star restaurant.

I sat next to Little KL…who was….an absolute terror to sit next to.

Chicken thigh. Yum. It’s unlike most chicken I’ve ever tasted. It’s much tougher and much denser. I would say it’s chewy. I can’t say it’s the chicken I’m used to, but I can definitely appreciate eating such a niche ingredient cooked to perfection.

Radish pallet cleanser. RL thought this was a dish and ate the whole thing within a few minutes.

Breast.

Outer thigh? We’ll be served many different parts of the chicken tonight. I wonder if we are all eating the same two of 3 chickens tonight?

We are actually all starting to get pretty full by this point.

Eggplant, so tender and sweet.

Chicken dumplings.

Heart.

I didn’t think I’d get full, but I’m am. By the end of the meal, we would all be stuffed.

Those little green bits are green onions. I’ve never seen such small green onions, so cute.

Love the green tiles. Such a beautiful little restaurant.

I’m getting incredibly full by now, and Little KL has been pretty wild the whole meal so I’m worn out as well.

Done with the grill portion. As expected, real wood charcoal used to cook everything.

Of course, no chicken only meal is complete without having eggs.

What a special treat. It was a little tough with the kids, can’t help but think about how much more awesome it would be if it was just me and RL. We’d be able to talk and compare our notes on every bite. But we’re both really happy to be able to share these experiences with the kids.

Simple dessert of two grapes per person for our dessert. It’s about almost $700 for all 5 of us to eat here including our drinks. All things considered, not super bad for a Michelin starred restaurant in Japan. Would highly recommend for the special experience.

Now we gotta take the train back to Namba station.

Don’t lie.

We partially picked our hotel spot because it’s next to the Pink Elephant, a music bar that RL and I really really enjoyed 11 years ago during our honeymoon. It’s a block away, and with the power of messaging on the kids’ ipads, we decided to try leaving them for one drink at a bar one block away. It was a little scary, but PL is almost 10 and we told her to message us immediately with any concerns…plus they are supposed to be all laying in bed for bedtime.

The same building as we remembered from 11 years ago. Except, this whole area has A LOT more people and tourists than 11 years ago. I remember this whole place being pretty dead back then.

Still exactly the same.

And….they are not open!!!! NOOOO…..It’s supposed to be open at 9pm daily, but it’s not. I’ll try to come back again at 10pm tonight to see if they’ll be open then.

I”ll check again an hour later just to see if maybe the opener was running late.

I came back by myself at 10pm…to be confronted with another closed Pink Elephant. Damnit. We’ll try again tomorrow. I know Masa the owner doesn’t always keep regular hours. Hopefully they’ll be open tomorrow. We’ve been looking to come back here for 11 years…sigh.

This is what Japan feels a little bit like to me. Very exclusive, and not always for me.

To be continued at Osaka Day 3.