I booked an apartment by Airbnb again, and our apartment was in a really convenient location. Just a 5 minute walk to Shinsaibashi. I stayed near Shin-Osaka Station the last time (because everywhere else was fully booked) and it was pretty inconvenient. So, the first thing we did was locate our apartment, dumped our luggage there and went straight off to Umeda Station.
Little sis wanted to go to the Pokemon Centre and I wanted to go the Gudetama Cafe at HEP Five. We went to the Pokemon Centre at Daimaru first and slowly walked to HEP Five because it was raining, I didn't take many photos on that day. HEP Five reminded me a lot of Odaiba but smaller. The shopping mall had a Ferris Wheel and Joypolis. We went to the cafe first because we thought there was going to be a long line but to our surprise, there wasn't any line. The cafe was only half full.
The cafe was really cute with videos of Gudetama playing on the tiny television screens. Some of the chairs were actually egg-shaped and there were stuffed toy Gudetamas placed almost at every table. Little sis ordered the carbonara pasta and I ordered the white curry rice and a chocolate latte.
Honestly, the food was inedible, the standard was as bad as the pop-up Pokemon cafe at Parco Shibuya last year minus the 6 hour waiting time. I probably would NEVER go again but hey, at least, I got a nice photo of my food right? right? right? (if you can't pick up my sarcasm, we're not friends)
Also, thank heavens the food wasn't overpriced. We spent quite a while chilling at the cafe just because we paid for shit food.
I obviously don't fit in.
We walked around the mall after our questionable dinner and decided to go to Joypolis. We played at the arcade and I was amazed there was a whole floor dedicated to Purikura (I don't even know why I'm amazed actually). We didn't bother taking Purikura that day since we both looked like shit from the rain. We spent some time at HEP Five before heading back to Shinsaibashi to meet up with PALM.
We met up with Kenta at the same building Hokage was. They were recording their new album, so little sis and I just chilled there talking to Kenta, waiting for the rest to finish up before I could go in and say hi. We didn't stay too long because they were busy, so we left before 12. Little sis was more amazed because it was her first time seeing a band record their album. I was glad she was able to be more talkative this time because she's usually quiet.
We fell asleep not too long after a hot shower.
Thursday, 10th March :
Today was little sis's last concert in Japan. She was pretty bummed out but I tried to cheer her up by taking her to get good coffee. We walked around Amerikamura and I showed her some new places I discovered on my own when I was there last September. I was so amazed to find old AFI albums at King Kong Records, I obviously bought them because they were all less than 1000yen.
We also took Purikura today! I forced my little sis to take it, so we kind of did a lot of stupid poses because we fail at acting cute. I can't at least, it makes me vomit. Also, the stamps for this machine were so cute because it was mostly food stamps, hahaha.
I brought her to Giracha Coffee after reading a lot of reviews online. Giracha was quite difficult to locate because it is not in Shinsaibashi or Amerikamura, it's in the hipster, quieter area past Amerikamura located in Tachibana Tori. I thought the concept of it was pretty cool because it's both a coffee and bicycle store.
The staff was friendly and nice, so we spent quite some time there. There isn't any seating but just a couple of stools and benches, so I would say it is more like an expresso bar. The Little sis ordered a cafe latte while I ordered a mocha. Little sis said that the taste of the coffee here is more "mouthful" than the usual she has had in Japan. It was pretty good in my opinion but the best mocha is still from Frankie Melbourne in Shimokita.
The shop itself sells bicycles, bicycle gear and some clothes. There was even a bicycle studio at the back, so you can see someone making bicycles which I thought was interesting. After coffee, we decided to explore the area because I haven't been to this part of Osaka either.
There were some pretty cool shops around and they reminded me of Taipei.
I particularly like how this store placed the globes at the window.
We roamed around here for a little bit before heading back to Shinsaibashi. We went back to our apartment to put down our stuff before heading out again for the lynch. show (next post). We were really hungry after the show obviously, so we went to get dinner and takoyaki that my friend recommended and sat next to the Dontonburi Canal slowly eating. We slowly made our way back to the apartment again and it was 1am when we got back.
We did some packing and went to straight to bed since we wanted to get up early the next day for Universal Studios.
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