Just came back from Japan with my parents. :) It's their first time to visit the country and to make things easier for everyone (including me, of course!) they decided to join the Japan Escapade group tour by Rakso Travel.
Our first hotel for the tour was the Osaka Dai-Ichi Hotel, conveniently located in the heart of Osaka and is less than 500 meters away from Osaka Station.
Here's the room I shared with my sister. :) It was quite spacious and can accommodate 1-2 more pax. I'm just not sure how much is the additional for that, I heard hotels in Japan are quite strict in terms of having extra people inside your hotel room.
It had the basic amenities offered by a hotel.
Bathrooms were small as expected.
The hotel offered buffet breakfast but for some weird reason, I forgot to take photos during our 3-day stay. Tsk. I can say though that breakfast was good even though they served almost the same food every single day.
Here are some of the activities we did during our stay in Osaka:
As expected from all tours, we were given a 1-day unlimited pass for Universal Studios Japan. This is my third time to visit and trust me, a day is not enough if you want to experience all the rides.
Our day ended with a buffet dinner at Universal Port Hotel's Port Dining Rico Rico restaurant where they served different kinds of Japanese food including sushi, tempura, and steak! :) This was also part of the tour and according to their website the buffet costs ¥4,300 per pax.
The next day, we went on a side trip to Kyoto which was approximately an hour away from Osaka. Please take note that this is a group tour so we rarely had the chance to take the train since transportation was provided.
We went to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, this is one of the most celebrated temples in Japan. It is famous to young people who come here looking for good fortune in love.
A trip to Kyoto wouldn't be complete without visiting the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It was extremely crowded that day and I struggled to capture nice photos without that much people in the background.
Our tour ended with a visit to the Umeda Sky Building, it's the 19th tallest building in Japan where you get a 365-degree view of Osaka. Entrance to the observatory costs ¥700 per person. Last but not the lease is a short shopping trip (agency gave us less than 2 hours which sucks!) to Namba where we went window shopping around Shinsaibashi area.
That's it for now but watch out for our trip going back to Tokyo! ;)
