Blog: A great way to finish the year! Travelling through Osaka, the heart and soul of Japan.(76 pics)

Traveling through Japan has been a blast and we have had a great time seeing the sights and hanging with some really cool locals. During our first month in Tokyo, we did a lot of great sightseeing and had a pretty good experience of Tokyo but most of the foreigners and even some locals all kept talking about Osaka. We had a heard a lot of people saying how great it is and how friendly the locals are and they were not lying. Osaka has some of the easiest people to get along with and the whole atmosphere is way more laid back, you don't have to go far to find a good party and have a good time. Compared to Tokyo, Osaka has so much more of a welcoming feel when you arrive whereas Tokyo was a very difficult place to meet locals and find out where the real fun is. Once you start exploring you will soon see that Osaka has everything you want from a Japanese city and more. Everything from huge glowing skyscrapers to tranquil feng shui parks, shrines, temples countryside and more. All this with the amazing atmosphere friendly locals and great food Osaka is the real place to be when visiting Japan.

Downtown Shinsaibashi is one of the first places we went to check out and we were instantly blown away b the sheer amount of people and the awesome lit up architecture. The shopping streets are a maze of giant glowing tunnels connecting all of the major areas in central Osaka and it makes for a great walk if you want a break from the subways.
There are an overwhelming amount of people shopping in the central areas but it somehow makes the experience even better whereas it's kind of annoying in other cities I have traveled through. There is a shop for pretty much everything and food for everyone's taste and even a Taco Bell for a good burrito fix.

There are many well-known streets and districts in Osaka like Dotonbori, Orange street, Umeda, Tennoji and America Mura which is a cool western part of town with a great vibe. The culture is very different in this part of town and you will find a mix of a skater, punk, metal and hip-hop scenes and plenty of great live music and great bars, We spent a lot of time here and made some great locals friends. We met a guy called Ki or Key and he was the owner of a psychedelics store selling all kinds of great clothing and things to blow your mind and like us he had traveled all over the world back when he was our age, He had so many great stories and was just an all-round good guy. After hanging out with Key a couple of times he invited us to a psytrance party with some friends of his at a locals bar and we decided to go and check it out. Immediately we were made to feel welcome and the people there were great and even spoke a little English. Behind the bar was Kimi and the owner Masa who we have since become very good friends with and we go and visit on a regular basis.

For our new years celebrations key invited us to an underground music party about an hour out of town in a place called Wakayama and it was off the chain. The venue had two rooms in the basement with different kinds of music and our friend Kento was also playing there too. There were only two foreigners there apart from us and after speaking to them apparently we were very lucky to be invited, I don't know much about DJ's but I got the vibe that this was an invite-only event with some top-level Japanese DJ's and it was an insane and amazing night, we even ended up in a traditional Indian smoke circle towards the end of the night and I was higher than ever before in a very good way. I felt very lucky to have had the opportunity to hang with such great people after only being in Osaka for 6 weeks and I guess that just shows what how great Osaka can be if you try to mingle with the locals.

We found a cool pinball arcade with just about every machine you can think of, I spent a good couple of hours in this place!

Each area in Osaka has something different and there is something for everyone, if you like to get away from the city you can go to some amazing parks within the city or venture a bit further out to some nice rural walking areas with temples, shrines and beautiful forests. Osaka is also very close to Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe and lots of other small towns so this area of Japan is great for traveling to multiple locations.

As you can imagine the Japanese are quite found of things like pokemon.

A near by place called Minoh park made for a great day out of the city.

Osaka castle is another must see if you visit the city. It is surrounded by a really nice park and the tour through the inside is great, showing all the history of the castle since it was first built. It also offeres some great views from the top floor.

For a better view of Osaka, you can go to the Harukas building which is the tallest building in Japan not including towers and has one of the biggest shopping malls inside too. On the 60th floor, there is an observation deck with a 360-degree view over Osaka and it is quite amazing to see this awesome city from so high up.

We have had some great times in Osaka and made some great memories like going crazy in a Japanese punk rock bar moshing to local bands, partying for 10 hours straight in underground raves, Christmas and new years and the best of people, we even introduced Key to his first ever Taco Bell.

One of many parks located throughout Osaka.

The whole trip to Japan has been great especially Osaka which I will visit again for sure. I consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity and will remember it forever and I hope you can travel there someday too.

Thanks for reading this Blog, I hope you enjoyed it. for more travel blogs check out the link below.

Happy Steeming and a happy new year to you all.

https://steemit.com/travel/@burkulese/a-weekend-in-beijing-tiananmen-square-and-the-forbidden-city-part-2