This might just be the prettiest set of photos from our whole Japan trip!

I was a little devastated about our cherry blossom encounters after our Kyoto trip, I already had very little expectation of what we’ll find at Osaka Castle Park. We chose to go there purely because its one of the popular cherry blossom spots in Osaka, and we were over the moon when we spotted a forest of pink up ahead… well me, over the moon anyways. .

Osaka Castle Park was just a short ride from our hotel although we had to change subway line once, we were there in about 20mins.. we exited Morinomiya station. At first the park seems like any ordinary park, but we did not realise how big this park was and it just got better.. and better…

Small gardening/flower shops lined the walk way..

What a beautiful scene found in a public park… I just needed a couple to stand in the middle of this…. #imaweddingphotographer

and then… this! Not the yellow brick road.. but a pathway lined with bright pink, i believe its called “moss phlox” flowers is absolutely stunning. If you follow me on instagram, I mentioned months ago how I’d love to see Shibazakura festival, but because that is in May.. we would be too early for it. So I’m glad I got to see a very, very small scale of these flowers in real life and just imagine how it’ll look covering a whole park.. and hills.

Almost naked cherry blossom trees 🙁

and then…. ta-daaaa…. am I dreaming?

Try spot me selfie-ing with all the sakuraaass!

while Alfred sets up the tripod…

For us to have a mini shoot ourselves…. under a sky of pink… just us, our tripod (and a little too many tourists walking around)

then we thought… nahh this is getting a little too cheesy, lets do something fun!

tourists walking around must be thinking, who the heck are these weirdos?

okay, fine lets just do a few more portraits because chances are we won’t get to come across this much cherryblossoms later…

We hardly ever get more than a handful of photos from our trips including the iphone selfies because we forget about capturing ourselves in the moment too. So that is why we decided to invest in a travel tripod (Manfrotto BE FREE tripod approx $200) and was well worth it as the photos we’ve taken of ourselves this trip has already beaten all records.

I’ll admit, I’m a little shy with being in front of the camera… how ironic considering I’m a photographer myself… but thankfully Alfred managed to make me feel a little more comfortable 🙂

My view… risking his allergies to get the shot *o*

We practically spent no more than 10mins looking around the exterior of Osaka castle.. took a photo to prove that we were there, and we’re off to our next destination.

We’re off to Osaka Aquarium! There are plenty of signs at the station so you can’t get lost.

  

From Sukiya (a food chain) – A ‘beef bowl’, I find is an affordable meal in Japan… for under $5, it’ll fill you up pretty well.

Giant Ferris Wheel was going through restorations, it is supposedly one of the biggest I’m not sure of where… but it looked MASSIVE in real life.

Otters are so cute! This one was rubbing its butt, so cute yet so funny. I took a video which I will share another day.

I think I’ve fallen in love with seals too.. they are so incredibly cute in their sunbaking/sleeping mode.

🙂

Was a little disappointed with the aquarium, I felt the range of things to see there wasn’t really extensive. It was kind of cool that they had a tank there that was around 3-4 stories high, so you would just walk around it as you get to the lower level. Somehow in the back of our mind we thought this was the largest aquarium where we would find something the size of the whale in.. but apparently we got the wrong aquarium. We were thinking of the one in Okinawa, which houses the largest fish; the whale shark.

Laid back day continues with maccas for him and shopping for me! I managed to pick up a few good deals from H&M… I didn’t get a chance to shop at local brands much during the trip actually 🙁 Next time!

This place is well known for their buns if I remember correctly.

I mentioned in my first post, that this place, Uncle Rikuro sells cheese cake that “feels like you’re eating air!” according to a friend, so we had to try it!

She rings the bell! when I fresh batch comes out of the oven and ‘stamps’ them. About $7/cake.. not bad. We came across this shop at the food hall of several department stores too.

We’ve always been inside Osaka station, to change trains etc but never stepped outside, and saw this massive complex from the outside downstairs of Daimaru department store. We were actually on our way to a restaurant that serves Kobe beef, with hopes that they will have availability that night. Unfortunately they were fully booked.. on a Monday night?! so we made a booking for the next night (yes my next post will feature juicy-melt-in-your-mouth-beeeef).

No kobe beef that night, oh well. We got rather indecisive of what to eat at Osaka station, we didn’t want to travel back to Namba because we were just there earlier that day. In the end we settled for this average takoyaki + okonomiyaki restaurant within the station. We had an early start the next day, so getting back to hotel early was our priority. (also we did eat maccas at around 4PM..)

It didn’t matter so much whether Dinner was amazing or not, because we knew we had something else to end the night with…. the lightest cheese cake ever from Uncle Rikuro! It was 3-4 days before my birthday, and because chances of me cutting a cake on my birthday is slim as we’ll be in the country side (Hakone), we just pretended this was my birthday cake without the candles.

How did it taste? AMAZING. I wouldn’t say it tastes like air because that means you wouldn’t feel a thing… but this is what I imagine it’ll be like to eat freshly whipped egg whites… or super light marshmallows. The base of the cake had sultanas which breaks up the cheese, not that it tasted really cheesy. It was a light cake but still felt surprisingly filling after a big slice. This is definitely one thing on my *Will Crave* list, I’m still imagining the flavour and texture in my mouth as I type about it! Not sure if I read the Japanese right, apparently it has to be consumed in about 3 days? If not I would’ve wanted to bring one home, but I had a 3-4 day stop over in Singapore. (Yes, I’m wearing a I HEART SG shirt)

We’re off to Hiroshima & Miyajima island in the next post! and a very memorable meal of KOBE BEEF 🙂

Check back later!

x Clarissa

ITINERARY
Day 01 – Arriving in Tokyo, straight to Osaka. Night out at Namba & Dotonbori.
Day 02 – Kyoto daytrip (Fushimi Inari shrine, Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto Gogyo ramen, Nishiki Market, Ginza, Maruyama Park, Philosophers Walk, Ninenzaka & Zanenzaka, Katsukura
Day 03 – Exploring Osaka (Osaka Castle Park, Osaka Aquarium)
Day 04 – Hiroshima daytrip (Atomic Bomb site, Mazda HQ, Miyajima island) Osaka – Kobe Misono