Seollal Vacation in Osaka, Japan

Glico Man

Seollal is the Korean Lunar New Year. Around this time students and parents have vacation time which means us teachers get vacation time. So, a couple of friends and I planned to go to Osaka, Japan. I knew nothing about Japan except that I love sushi, but I love going to new places so why not. Osaka is only about 2 hours away from Seoul which is very convenient. We had a 5 day weekend starting from Feb 18-22 but we left on the 19th instead and came back on the 23rd just in time for work. We flew with Peach airlines, a low cost airline. It was definitely better than my AirAsia flight!

Osaka is the capital of the capital city of the Osaka Prefecture and also the second largest metropolitan area in Japan! Osaka is known for their food and have many famous restaurants in the popular area of Dotonbori.

After we landed we went to our airbnb then went straight to Namba. Namba is a district in Osaka known for shopping, bars, restaurants, arcades, etc. So, we walked around for a little bit before we found food. We went to Dotonbori, a tourist area along the Dotonbori Canal. We found the Glico man which is apparently very popular. ​​

View from Ebisu bridge

After taking some pictures we walked around where more of the restaurants were. There was an abundant of restaurants to choose from with different specialties. We decided to try some real Japanese food that I've never tried before.

We ended up just going to a random restaurant because everything we saw out was worth going inside for. I don't remember the name of the restaurant but it was a little bit of a wait. We ordered drinks and also Takoyaki and two Okonomiyaki's. Takoyaki is kind of like the Japanese version of a dumpling. It is a round wheat batter with some sort of meat in it. We got squid in it and it was pretty damn delicious. On top of the balls it had dried fish. We also got Okonomiyaki, which is a Japanese pancake with different toppings. We got one with scallions and pork, the other with dried fish and beef. But everything was so delicious I didn't even take pictures with the food.

Takoyaki (picture from google)

Okonomiyaki (picture from google)

After we ate we went back to the apartment since we wanted an early start the next day.