First thing in the morning we stopped by a newly constructed Abeno Harukas building located right next to our hotel. It is the tallest building in Japan (300 meters) and features an observation deck on 58-60th floors. The view from above was great and we might have even caught a glimpse of Kobe across the bay. After we came down to the ground, we found a nice cafe (Tree Cafe) inside of the nearby train station. They served sandwiches and tea for breakfast.
After breakfast we walked to Shitennōji temple, one of the oldest temples in Japan . It has several altars, monk statues, a sacred spring, two turtle ponds and a number of blossoming sakuras. Pink sakura petals were scattered all over the temple grounds and some of turtles who live in the pond were eating them. Having thoroughly explored the first temple, we walked to another Buddhist temple, Isshin-ji. There were several large Buddha statues around that temple that turned out to be okotsu butsu (lit. 'bone Buddhas'), which means they were made from ashes of tens of thousands of devotees and is also pretty creepy.
After leaving the temple though its graveyard, we walked through Tennoji park back to our train stating, ate some cheap and tasty burgers at MOS Burger, had some dessert (mont blanc and strawberry shortcake) at cafe Prego, and dropped by the hotel to get warmer clothes.
We then walked to Shinsekai, one of the most notorious and seedy neighbourhoods in Japan. It is filled with bars, restaurants, gambling houses (pachinko) and cheap shops. We haven't noticed anything even remotely dangerous though . At the other end of that area we walked under Tsutenkaku Tower and headed north to the centre of the city.
On the way to Namba, the southern city centre of Osaka, we passed by the geeky heaven of Den Den Town, a neighbourhood famous for electronic shops, manga stores and maid cafes. We checked out a store with 5 floors of plastic models, R/C models, train models and other similar stuff. I've also picked up a couple of latest Sailor Moon books for my sister's friend and a maid handed Jerry an ad for a bunny maid cafe (they have both maids and bunnies, what else can you wish for?). We also checked out the National Bunraku Theatre, where traditional bunraku (puppet) plays are performed. I wanted to see a performance there, but it turned out that each play comes in 2 parts of 5 hours each, so it's a bit too much for this trip.
The last stop of today's expedition was Dotonbori, the touristy bustling shopping and dining street of Namba district. We navigated enormous crowds of tourists, walked along Dotonbori canal, checked out the iconic Glico Running Man neon sign and had a kaiseki dinner at the famous Kani Doraku crab restaurant. After eating broiled crab, crab sashimi, crab soup, crab sushi, crab gratin and 3 pieces of fruit we felt sick (of crab) and took subway back to the hotel.