Three days in Osaka: a city with a word for eating itself into ruin

Kushikatsu under the tower, the castle in the morning, and a shrine on the way to the airport

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Osaka
Places
6 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Osaka is the city Japanese people go to when they want to enjoy themselves, and it has a word for the local approach to that: kuidaore, eating yourself into ruin. It was the merchant city while Kyoto was the imperial one and Edo was the shogun's, and the character stuck. People talk to you in shops here. Comedians are a local export. The food is cheap, loud and served fast.

That makes it an unusually forgiving city to visit, because the sights are not the point. Osaka has a castle rebuilt in concrete, a couple of good towers and one genuinely ancient shrine, and none of them will be the thing you remember. The thing you remember will be a counter with eight seats, a plate of skewers and a sauce pot you are told not to dip twice into.

Three days is right for that: two evenings out and enough daylight to see the castle, the old temple and the shrine without hurrying. Osaka also sits half an hour from Kyoto and Nara and an hour from Himeji and Kobe, so a longer stay usually turns into a base rather than more Osaka.

Highlights

  • Shitennō-ji, founded in 593, laid out the way temples were before Japan made the style its own
  • Kushikatsu in Shinsekai, under a tower designed by the man who did Tokyo Tower
  • Osaka Castle from the park in the morning, before the coaches get to the keep
  • The escalator through open air to the roof of the Umeda Sky Building at dusk
  • Sumiyoshi Taisha's drum bridge, and a shrine style older than Buddhism in Japan

Where to stay

Osaka, two nights

The choice is Kita or Minami. Kita, around Umeda and Osaka Station, is business hotels, department stores and the fastest connections to Kyoto and the airports. Minami, around Namba and Shinsaibashi, is where the eating and drinking is, and where you want to be at eleven at night without a taxi fare.

Two nights is enough to eat properly twice and see the three things worth seeing. It is not enough to add the aquarium and the bay, which is a half day on its own, or Universal Studios, which is a full one.

Osaka is also the cheapest base in Kansai. If you are travelling on and Kyoto's prices have alarmed you, sleeping here and commuting the fifteen minutes in is a legitimate move that plenty of Japanese travellers make.

Day by day

Day 1 in Osaka

Shitennō-ji, Tsūtenkaku and the skewers of Shinsekai

Tennōji is the right half day to land into: the oldest thing in the city and the scruffiest part of it are twenty minutes' walk apart, and the whole area is one subway ride from Namba or the airport train.

Shitennō-ji was founded in 593, which makes it one of the first Buddhist temples in Japan, and although the halls are post-war concrete the layout is the original: a straight line of gate, pagoda and main hall, the continental arrangement that Japanese temples later abandoned. The Gokuraku-jōdo garden at the back costs a little extra and is where you sit down.

Then walk northwest into Shinsekai, which was built in 1912 as an amusement district modelled on Paris and New York, went to seed for most of the last century, and now trades on exactly that. Eat here rather than in Dōtonbori on your first night. It is cheaper, the queues are shorter and the strip lighting is better.

  1. 15:00

    Shitennōji Temple

    Religious

    Founded in 593, in the reign of Empress Suiko and by tradition at Prince Shōtoku's order, on the site of a battle that decided whether Japan would be Buddhist. The buildings are 1960s reconstructions of the sixth-century plan, which is the interesting part: gate, pagoda and golden hall in one straight line, unlike almost every temple built since.

  2. 17:30

    Tsūtenkaku

    Architecture

    The 103-metre tower over Shinsekai, rebuilt in 1956 by the architect who designed Tokyo Tower, and treated by the city as a symbol of getting back on its feet after the war. Rub the feet of Billiken, the grinning good-luck idol on the observation floor, which is what everybody else is queuing for.

  3. 19:00

    Jan-Jan Yokocho Street

    Eat

    A narrow covered lane of cheap eating houses, some in the same premises they opened in just after the war, plus standing bars, a shogi parlour and several kushikatsu counters. Walk the length of it, then pick the one with the queue of locals.

With more time: Two other things in this quarter: Spa World has themed baths, opens around the clock and is a good move after a long flight, and Abeno Harukas next to Tennōji station is the tallest building in Osaka, with a paid deck at 300 metres and a free view from the office floors partway up.

Day 2 in Osaka

Osaka Castle, the history museum, and Umeda at dusk

Start at the castle and be honest about what it is. The keep is a 1931 concrete reconstruction and the inside is a museum rather than a castle, so half an hour indoors is plenty. The grounds are the real thing: enormous stone walls, a wide moat, and granite blocks in the gateways that were dragged here by sea in the 1620s and still look impossible.

The history museum is directly across the road and does the job the castle does not. It runs downward through the floors from Osaka's stint as the imperial capital in the seventh century, and the top floor has the best view of the castle you will get.

In the afternoon, cross to Umeda. The Sky Building is two towers joined at the top by a floating platform, and getting up there is more memorable than the view from it, though the view is good too. Go up near sunset and stay for the lights coming on.

  1. 09:30

    Osaka Castle

    Historic

    The stronghold Toyotomi Hideyoshi built in 1583 to run the country from, destroyed in 1615 and rebuilt twice since, most recently in concrete. Come for the park and the walls; the cherry blossom in early April here is the city's best, and the whole of Osaka comes to sit under it.

  2. 12:30

    Osaka Museum of History

    Culture

    Ten floors of Osaka from Naniwa palace to the pre-war shopping arcades, with reconstructed streets you walk through rather than look at. Start at the top and work down, and use the windows on the tenth floor for the castle view.

  3. 14:30

    Lunch at the castle park

    Eat

    The Jo-Terrace complex at the north-west corner of the park has a couple of dozen places to eat, which saves walking back into town in the middle of the day.

  4. 17:30

    Umeda Sky Building

    Architecture

    A forty-storey pair of towers bridged at the top by an open-air roof deck, reached by an escalator that crosses the gap between them with nothing but glass around it. Open until half past ten at night, and better after dark than before it.

With more time: For the evening, Dōtonbori is fifteen minutes south on the Midōsuji line, and the walk from Shinsaibashi down through the arcade to the canal is the classic Osaka night out. Okonomiyaki is the dish to order, and the good places have a queue by seven.

Day 3 in Osaka

Sumiyoshi Taisha on the way south

Sumiyoshi Taisha is the one sight in Osaka that is genuinely old, and it is on the Nankai line heading south, which is the line to Kansai Airport. That makes it a departure morning rather than a detour.

The shrine is said to have been founded in the third century and its buildings are rebuilt periodically in sumiyoshi-zukuri, a style with straight roofs and no Chinese influence at all, because it predates the arrival of the continent's architecture. It reads as plain until you have seen enough shrines to notice what is missing.

The steep vermilion drum bridge over the pond at the entrance is the picture everyone takes. Cross it slowly: the steps are as steep as they look.

  1. 09:00

    Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine

    Religious

    Four halls in a row, roofed in thatch with crossed finials, in a wooded compound that feels a long way from the city twenty minutes behind you. The shrine has been rebuilt on the same plan for around eighteen hundred years, and the first thing you cross is a bridge donated, by tradition, by Hideyoshi's consort.

  2. 11:30

    Takoyaki before the train

    Eat

    Namba is on the way back and the standing takoyaki counters around the station do the best version of the city's signature snack. Eight balls, one wooden pick, no seat.

  3. 13:00

    Nankai to the airport

    Travel

    The airport express leaves from Namba and takes about forty minutes. Add half an hour if you are checking a bag at the in-town counter.

With more time: If you are not flying out, the aquarium in the bay area holds a whale shark in a 5,400 tonne tank and takes about two hours, and the Nakanoshima riverside walk between Umeda and the castle is the pleasantest hour of flat walking in the city.

Before you go

Getting in

Kansai International is the main gateway and sits on an artificial island in the bay. The Nankai Rapi:t gets you to Namba in about forty minutes, the JR Haruka goes to Tennōji and Shin-Osaka, and the airport buses cost less and take longer. Itami, confusingly called Osaka International, handles domestic flights and no longer takes international ones; from there, the limousine bus is simpler than the monorail.

From Tokyo the shinkansen takes about two and a half hours and arrives at Shin-Osaka, which is three subway stops north of the centre rather than in it. Kyoto is fifteen minutes away by the same trains, or half an hour on the cheaper Hankyu and Keihan lines.

Getting around

The Osaka subway is the second largest network in Japan and it is easy: the Midōsuji line, the red one, runs north to south through Shin-Osaka, Umeda, Shinsaibashi, Namba and Tennōji, which is most of what you want. Use an ICOCA card, or the Suica you bought in Tokyo, which works here without any fuss.

If you are doing three or more subway rides in a day, the Enjoy Eco Card pays for itself and comes with discounts at a long list of attractions. Otherwise pay as you go.

Osaka is a cycling city to a degree that catches people out. Bicycles use the pavements at speed, so look before you step sideways.

Where the food is

Three dishes define the city and all three are cheap. Takoyaki, octopus in batter balls, is street food and best eaten standing up. Okonomiyaki is a savoury pancake cooked on a hotplate, often in front of you. Kushikatsu is deep-fried skewers of anything, dunked once into a shared pot of sauce, and the no-double-dipping rule is the only piece of etiquette in Osaka that is genuinely enforced.

The two eating districts are Dōtonbori and Shinsekai. Dōtonbori is the canal-side strip in Minami with the running-man sign and the mechanical crab, and it is a spectacle rather than a restaurant guide: the good places are one street back, in Hōzenji Yokochō and the arcades off it. Shinsekai is scruffier, cheaper and better.

When to come

Osaka is hot and humid from late June to early September, and the castle park has almost no shade. Spring and autumn are both comfortable, with cherry blossom in the castle grounds at the start of April and the Japan Mint's riverside cherry walk opening for about a week later in the month.

The Sumo Spring Grand Tournament runs for fifteen days in March at the Osaka gymnasium, and it is far easier to get into than the Tokyo tournaments.

Osaka rewards low expectations of its sights and high ones of its evenings. Nobody comes home talking about the castle. They talk about being handed a beer by a stranger in a bar with six stools, or the man at the kushikatsu counter miming the sauce rule at them, or the noise of an arcade at eleven at night.

So plan the days lightly and keep the evenings long. Book nothing after eight, walk between the neon and the canal, and let the city do what it is good at.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Osaka worth three days, or should I stay in Kyoto?
Two nights in Osaka does the city properly and the two are half an hour apart, so the real question is where you sleep. Osaka is cheaper, livelier at night and better for eating; Kyoto is quieter and closer to the temples. Plenty of people split the difference and base themselves here.
Is Osaka Castle worth going inside?
Not for long. The keep is a concrete reconstruction housing a museum, so half an hour is honest. The park, the moat and the stone walls are what justify the morning, and they are free.
What should I eat, and where?
Takoyaki standing up near Namba, okonomiyaki sitting down in Minami, and kushikatsu in Shinsekai. Dip a skewer once. The pot is shared, and the sign telling you so is not a joke.
Do I need a Japan Rail Pass in Osaka?
No. The city runs on the subway and the private lines, none of which a rail pass covers. An IC card plus the occasional day ticket is all you need unless you are making long shinkansen hops in the same week.
Can I add Nara or Himeji to this?
Yes, and Osaka is the best base for both. Nara is forty minutes on the Kintetsu line from Namba, Himeji is an hour on the shinkansen, and either one slots in as a fourth day without changing where you sleep. Copy the trip into the planner and add the day.