It's been a busy week cleaning and building furniture. I finally have time to continue blogging about our adventure in Asia this year!
Day 13 started late, though I was in a bit of a panic. I either lost or misplaced one of our Osaka Amazing Pass. During the morning, I tried to figure out where it could be; I remembered doing laundry late last night, so we headed down to check the laundromat. Lo and behold, our pass was stuck on the rubber seal of the laundry/dryer machine. It went through a full wash and dry cycle but was still in one piece. The only question now was whether the machine could still scan the card.
We headed towards the train station and towards the ticket gate. Fortunately, it did accept the card, thus not needing a replacement! Our first location was another Ferris Wheel: Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel. It was bigger than the HEP5 we took yesterday, and had transparent cars! I had to admit it was a bit nerve-wracking to be so high up in the air while looking at the transparent floor. After taking in the views, we headed to the nearby Santa Maria Day Cruise. The cruise was 45 mins in length and took us around the Aji River. Not wanting to be out on deck getting beaten down by sunlight, we headed underneath to their cafeteria. I got myself a bulgogi beef rice burger, which was small, but not bad in taste.
Once the tour was done, we headed off to find a late lunch. We settled for kushikatsu, which is similar to tempura. I never had kushikatsu before (or at least not aware that I did). Personally, I thought it was better than tempura. Once we finished our lunch, we headed toward a nearby Pablo kiosk/store to sample their mini tarts. I have to say, Calgary's Pablo does a really good job of copying the taste of Japan's Pablo. Since it was quite hot, we took a break at a nearby café. I got myself a drink and a slice of cake.
Once we were able to cool down, we walked toward Tsutenkaku to go down the tower slide. Unfortunately, it was a lot busier than yesterday, probably because we arrived a few hours before closing time. Slightly dejected, but determined to go down the slide, we stopped by the Zaou: a restaurant where you catch your own fish. We spent a good amount of time here, mostly due to the fact that it was difficult to catch horse mackerel (the cheapest fish on the menu). My girlfriend was able to catch one after persevering for at least 15 minutes. Fortunately, she's not a big fan of fish, so I was able to get the kitchen to turn it into a sashimi dish. At this point, I wasn't able to catch anything myself. We were about to leave, but she convinced me otherwise to give it another try. After waiting around 20 minutes without any luck, I started flailing the line and hook in the water. By sheer dumb luck, I managed to hook a fish via it's belly. It tried desperately to get away as I swooped it into the net. I did feel slightly guilty, though I ended up asking the kitchen to make tempura out of this one.
After paying for dinner, we headed back to the tower. The lineup was only about 30 minutes long now, so we ended up getting our tickets to head upstairs. The slide itself was a bit lackluster, but they did film the beginning and end of your journey.
With our day pretty much done, we headed back to our hotel to rest. I was missing the onsen experience so I ended up soaking in our tub for the night. All in all, the Amazing Pass was indeed Amazing. Not only did it help us save money, but it's quite durable as well! I would recommend this to anyone traveling to Osaka for the first time.
We passed by Yasaka Shrine as we made our way back to Tsutenkaku.
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