A Day in Osaka & Kobe

Posing with an Owl at Owl Family cafe

Before arriving in Osaka, I found a website with all these different types of cafes in Japan and this one definitely caught my attention. I love cafes and I love animals. The owl cafe is in Osaka and opens at 11am. They only let a certain amount of people in at a time and there are hour long time slots (e.g 11am-12pm). Lucky for us we got there at 11 10 and there were a few spaces open. Also, you have to buy at drink for 10,000 won. They give a short presentation on how to handle the owls and there is also English instructions written down on each table. There were 4 owls you could hold. But in total I think there were about 15 different owls in the cafe; extra small, small, medium, and large.

The one below was the largest owl. It looked really heavy.  It's claws look really sharp!

Here you can tell its a big owl.

There were about 10 owls in cages sleeping. Very interesting looking owl. Especially the one on the right.

Now that I looked at the pictures of the big owl, this one that i'm holding looks like its the same species just a bit smaller. This one was a bit heavy and also made me nervous because of the size.

Getting ready to hold the owl

This owl was quite heavy. The look on my face says discomfort but wanting a picture.

This owl was so creepy. It would not stop watching everything I did. When I took pictures of other owls it watched me. I would move side to side and it would not stop watching me. I went closer to it to take a picture and it ruffled up its feathers which was so creepy, so I just walked walked away from that area because it creeped me out.

This owl is adorable, with the big eyes and chubby body. It was really light too. This was my type of owl, adorable and light.

They have all the different species here and you can actually purchase them. I can't read Japanese so I have no idea what species these are. I tried to google it but there are so many that look a like.

After the picture time was over with the owls we sat and had our drinks that we had to order. Then I noticed there was a line forming outside. This place is pretty popular.

After the owl cafe we went to Kobe to have lunch. Kobe is about 45 minutes away from Osaka by train. Kobe is very popular for their quality beef. But with quality come a hefty price tag. Lunch was the cheaper option which is why we wanted to go for lunch. We found a place called Steak land which seemed to be really popular so we decided to eat there.

At Steak Land Kobe beef teppanyaki costed 3,100 ($31), there were other places where it was $60+ which is crazy. Teppanyaki is when they grill the food right in front of you, so you get to watch it being made. When we found Steak Land we weren't too happy to see a long like up. There was about 15 people ahead of us, which mean't this place must be good. It took us a good 30-40 minutes of standing in line to get seated at a table. 

When we got seated I understood why it took us so long to get a seat; the restaurant was small! Anyways the meat on the left is Kobe Beef, it's really thick and juicy. With the lunch you get miso soup, rice, a side dish of pickles and radish, two different sauces, salad and bean sprouts. When you think about it the price really isn't that bad. I think I ordered a beer with every meal I had on this trip. This beef was so good! I wish I could have gone again, but it was far and expensive.

Teppanyki

Towards the end of our meal we had a Japanese couple talking to us. The man recommended that we get dessert because we love to eat cake. He recommended a cafe called Tooth Tooth...... A horrible name for a cafe but the dessert was great and so was my tea.

Tooth Tooth Cafe treats

After dessert we planned to go to Kyoto. Then we spotted a Purikura: A Japanese photobooth. It was so pink and girly. In Korea they have these but I have never seen it anywhere. But everyone knows Japan invented this phenomenon. So we had to do it.

We were amazed how huge this place was. There had so many photobooths to choose from and they even had a second floor.

This is the second floor; they have lots of booths and even have an area where you can do your hair and make-up, plus they have costumes that you can rent! Talk about going all out! I would have dressed up as Sailor Moon if I didn't feel so weird about being there. ​

Each booth only cost 400 yen ($4) and you got the same number of pictures as people who were taking the photos. It was so hard to work this machine because it was all in Japanese, we just kept hitting colours snce we didn't know what we were doing. As you can see the fist picture we took we weren't even ready. For some reason my lipstick was all smudgy which makes me look very weird. After you are finished snapping pictures you have to go into another booth to decorate the pictures. It took us like 15 minutes to do it. There were too many cutesy stuff to add. 

Our last stop would be Kyoto. The train ride is 90 mins long. That's one of the things I didn't like about this trip; the train rides. Places were so far from each other, we spent a lot of time commuting.