Osaka Temmangu Shrine (大阪天満宮)

Osaka Temmangu Shrine (大阪天満宮) http://tenjinsan.com/

From Shitennō-ji, we moved towards Tennoji station to get to Osaka Temangu Shrine via the Tanimachi line to Minamimorimachi station (Exit 4B).

Osaka Temmangu Shrine is the most famous Tenjin shrine in Japan. Sugawara no Michizane, a famous 10th century scholar and warrior is enshrined there as the principal deity, as the god of scholarship and fine arts.

Saw this outside the shrine and thought that it resembles our chinese "fan tai sui" chart.

Here you can see many people wishing to get into various university. I guess it must because of its popularity, the shrine's ema and charms are more expensive compared to other shrines. A closer look into other people's ema, you can see that they have written their name together with the name of the university that they would like to enter. Well, I did visit the temple in March and April is when the new school term starts, so I guess many people are wishing that they would have pass the entrance exam to the university of their choice.

This might be a good place to visit for those who are gonna sit for their exams soon or wishing to get acceptance into a certain university.

Just a few steps away from the shrine is the Tenjinbashi-suji shopping street (http://www.tenjin123.com/) which is the longest in Japan (2.6km). There we walked past this okonomiyaki shop and decided to try their mix seafood okonomiyaki. Super good~!!!

You can see that at different stretches along the shopping arcade, the decorative items were different.

The Osaka Museum of Housing and Living is also located within the shopping district.

Walked past this pretty flower pot on the way to the station, wonder what's the tall one is called.

On the return trip, we had to change subway at Umeda station. Walked past Hankyu Umeda and decided to just buy dinner from their department store. The whole lower ground level is filled with food stalls selling various food.......we were spoilt for choice.

Outside the department store, spring must be their theme because there were flowers everywhere.

In the end we bought 2 small boxes of premium salad from a stall that specialises in salad at a premium price of almost 350yen for 100g. Then we got also bought a pretty bento and potato and seafood croquettes.

The salads were good as expected due to their expensive price.

Wakame salada

Ebi salada.....forgot to put flash for this pic

The bento was yummy too~

The croquettes were a let down because we had left them in the cold air for too long before enjoying them. Hence, they have turned cold, hard and no longer crunchy. Otherwise the taste is pretty good.

Met a nice person on the very first day. I asked the uncle for directions and he brought us all the way to the destination while talking to us. Asking us where are we from and telling us about the shopping district. The most 'kam dong' part is that, the place that we wanted to go to is not even along his way. Really nice~ :D

Shitennō-ji Temple (四天王寺)

Shitennō-ji Temple (四天王寺) http://www.shitennoji.or.jp/

To get to Shitennō-ji Temple, we had to get to Shitennōji-mae Yūhigaoka station (exit 4) on the Tanimachi line. Walked past a really cute bakery and we couldn't resist so.....Ta-da~!!!

I think we bought this mentaiko bread, a potato and another onion bun. But because this first one didn't taste very nice, I lost motivaiton to take picture of the others.....hahaha

Sampat ppl like us, walked past a cementary and took pictures before reading the signs to see what the place actually is!!! I apologize to everyone who walked past us while we were taking pictures. 

The weather was super cold, but thank goodness for these vending machines which are everywhere!!! We could get hot drinks wherever we go!! Yummy~

The words says, the things that mum made for me are very delicious!

Cuzzie's fav. Itoen

Even their sewer holes look amazing. That's Osaka castle for you......

The temple was first constructed in 593 and is the first official Buddhist temple in Japan. Most of what we can see now are structures from 1963, when the temple was last rebuilt.

We entered through the Nakanomon Gate, where we will first pass by the Jizo statues~

Eirei-do, The light for Peace and Prayer

The kame are so cute~

Ishi no butai

Look at all the kame swimming there....

So beautiful~

The bell tower

Sakura was really in full bloom everywhere we went.

My favourite sakura tree!! The shidarezakura aka weeping cherry blossoms. Those with more than 5 petals are called yaeshidarezakura and usually bloom about a week later than those with 5 petals.

Saijumon Gate

To enter the main temple area, we have to pay 300yen near the gate.

This is the five story pagoda. I recommend you to walk all the way up if you have already paid to enter. 

There's a main Golden Pavilion housing the Nyorai Kannon. And this is the covered corridor which holds 3 gates - the Deva, Western and Eastern gate.

Saidaimon Gate that we exited from

I found a blog that describe the history, structures and the sights in the temple really well. To read it: http://lipikazuo.blogspot.com/2010/02/shitennoji-temple.html 

First meal in Japan

After arriving at Namba, we got so hungry that we had to eat something before we even exited the station gates. We stopped by this cute little noodle shop in the station for a quick meal.

Standing noodle store anyone? Nankai soba shop located right in the station

You order from a machine.

No seats, but it's alright.....it was a good experience to eat noodles while standing up. Water is FOC at the side of the counter. 

Kitsune soba with some sansai (mountain vegetables) donated by cuzzie from ther sansai soba. Yummy soba  in warm broth.....perfect for a cold day. *slurps*

From here onwards, we made good use of our Yokoso Osaka one-day unlimited pass to travel around.

Landing in KIX

My long awaited trip to Osaka finally got realised!!

We took a night flight from KL-LCCT to Kansai International Airport (KIX), which landed before 7am (Japan time) on 29/03/13. Being on a night flight, we slept throughout the entire journey and only woke up right before landing. The Japanese lady next to cuzzie, who spoke good english, was nice enough to talk us about Osaka and sakura. Since she's from Hokkaido, she told us that the best time to visit would be in May/ June, which I hope to do so in future. Based on past experiences and stories from friend's, I've known that Japanese people are very helpful towards tourist. But little did I expect that, we would experience right on the plane itself. Such a nice lady, the first thing she said to us when we landed was "Welcome to Japan! :D".

As with my Air Asia X experience to Haneda in Tokyo, there will be buses to ferry passengers to terminal 1. Really appreciate that because the weather was super cold in the morning. The queue for foreign passports was a little long, but it was all settle in about 40 min. Baggage claim was a breeze.

We then went to the Tourist Information Centre Travel desk, located at 1F, central area, to purchase our train tickets. Unfortunately the unlimited pass for sold out so we only managed to purchase the Osaka Kaiyu ticket for 2550yen, which included an entrance ticket to the Osaka aquarium and  unlimited rides on the Osaka Municipal subway, new tram and buses on the day of travel, which would have otherwise cost 2200yen for admission alone. This pass is still available till 31/03/14. For more info: http://www.f00-020.243.145.203.fs-user.net/language/eng/info/2013_kaiyu_ticket.pdf

Right in front of the Travel desk is the Kansai Tourist Information Centre with lots of travel brochures up for grabs. From here you can get more info on the latest passes/ tickets available too as some of those that I mention here might not be available anymore during your time of travel.

Next, is the Softbank counter as cuzzie wanted to rent a SIM card. The rental for the SIM is at 105yen/ day and if you want unlimited wifi access, that would be 1500yen/ day. I don't think we utilised the wifi at all. Their counter is just right in front of the International Arrival gate. To return the SIM card, you can just drop it off at the little box at their counter even after office hours. For more info, check out Softbank's rental website: http://www.softbank-rental.jp/e/ 

There are many ways to travel to Osaka or nearby cities like Kobe/ Kyoto/ Nara from KIX. Do check out their website for more information: http://www.kansai-airport.or.jp/en/index.asp

We decided on trains because it's one of the cheapest and most convenient. With the Yokoso-Osaka pass that we got for 1500yen, we get a single ride on the Rapid Nankai airport express from KIX to Namba and unlimited rides on the Osaka Municipal subway, new tram and buses on the day of travel. This ticket could be purchased directly at the KIX station. There will be an english translator at the counter for those who could not speak english. No worries for those who could not speak japanese. Info for Yokoso-Osaka pass: http://www.jtbmalaysia.com/user_file/ahq04-hp/etc/yokoso.pdf

To the Nankai express we go~, sampat ppl like me forgot to check the train and seat number, so naturally I sat on someone else's seat. Once at Namba, we changed to subway midosuji line to Umeda because we wanted to get Hankyu  tourist pass and also the Arima-Rokko 1 day pass for our trip to Kobe the next day. Unfortunately for us, the Arima-Rokko 1 day pass was sold out. As for the 2-day Hankyu tourist pass for 1200yen, we were lucky to get it because the sale period was only up to 31/03/13 and valid till 30/04/13, so you might not be able to purchase it anymore. For more details: http://rail.hankyu.co.jp/en/

Since we were already in Umeda, we headed towards the Umeda Visitor's Information Centre to try our luck with the Autumn and winter unlimited pass again and hooray~~ as they still have stock, so we got the 2-day pass for 2700yen. It was almost nearing the end of the sales period (31/03/13) and valid only till 30/04/13. Of course, new passes for 2013 Spring and Summer are now available for sale. Do check out their website, I highly recommend this pass as one can really save a lot with it: http://www.osaka-info.jp/osp/en/

Really happy after all that though we had spent quite a lot because these tickets were like our 'tour packages'. Plus it's a lot cheaper to travel using them than buying tickets individually. 

Of course, these are not the only way to travel around Osaka, just a few that I recommend. Some of the others that are very popular among tourists are:

1) The JR-West Rail Pass (the most common pass and the most convenient I guess as tourists can purchase them in their home country) http://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/travel-information/pass/

2) Kansai Thru Pass http://www.surutto.com/tickets/kansai_thru_english.html

3) Kintetsu Rail Pass http://www.kintetsu.co.jp/foreign/english/index.html

4) and many more from the Hanshin website depending on where you want to travel to http://www.hanshin.co.jp/global/en/ticket/#Surutto

Depending on where you want to travel to, different pass might be more convenient or give more discounts than the other. The most important thing is to do your research first before going~

NEWS is 4

Ever since Yamapi and Ryo's departure from NEWS, I haven't really been catching up with them except watching their latest PV's. 

Was really upset with Pi and Ryo's decision initially but I'm ok now.

Pi knew from the beginning that his path would not be easy as he would be starting once he leave NEWS but  I will always be supporting him.

As for Ryo, can't blame him for wanting to focus more on K8's activities. Plus as one from Kansai, I think he feels a need to work hard for the Kansai Jrs as well. We all know that K8 was the last group from Kansai that debuted and that was 9 years ago. Johnny really needs to debut another Kansai group.....their jrs have been working really hard.


Last night was the first time I've seen footages from their NEWS live tour 2012 美しい恋にするよ. NEWS with 6 members was my favourite Jpop group ever and for years, I've been wanting to watch them live.

Cried while watching their performance of "Share". This is because Share was written by the 6-member NEWS and it was sort of like a new start for them after their short hiatus. The song talked about how 6 strangers who came together and became friends, their friendship and their existence with the fans. 

This Share performance is definitely one of my favourite. Massu totally teared up at the part where he was supposed to sing about how they all came together to produce this stage and to thank everyone. Even Shige teared up. Tego was amazing because thanks to him, the song was able to be performed nicely. He was able to maintain his composure. I must've hit that replay button for at least 10X because I love the performance so much.

 An original song for the 4-member NEWS - "Fullswing"

This is my favourite new song by them. Just the name of the song itself seems soooo positive. It's like, yes we will go in full swing from now on and give our best for everything that we do in the future!!



hehe....another emotional performance. One that you will cry every single time you watch it, no matter how many time you have watched it before. I guess it is understandable as NEWS had been through so many hardships. From 9->8->6->4. NEWS couldn't have much activities together as  a group because the members either work separately or are too busy. 

Pi for example had sooo many dramas plus his own solo activities. Then there's Ryo who also have K8 activities and when he's with one group, he's halting the activities of the other group. Then Tegomas was born and they too have separate activities.

Ok, maybe that performance didn't really do NEWS or the song justice. So here's another live version where you can hear everyone's voices clearly.



 For me, NEWS is truly 4 and they're perfect this way now. I would love to attend their concert in future too if I have the chance. 

Koyama + Shige + Tegoshi + Massu = NEWS<3

Menya Musashi Samurai Ramen

Had a little gathering with my uni pals at Menya Musashi Samurai Ramen in 1U.

Heard that the place was good......

This is what we ordered.....coincidentally, we all decided to have the kuro soup based ramen, just with different toppings.

Here's mine~ oh, how fattening but good!!

Look at the dark coloured broth! 

Top it up with some garlic or curry powder to add oomph to the taste!

Yum! yum! I really love ramen with a good soup base!