Osaka Castle, Osaka

Sashiburi ... it's been a while since I wrote the last trip in Kyoto. The Nishiki Food Market. Today, I will blog about my last trip in Japan, i.e. Osaka Castle. Osaka Castle was built during the Tokugawa era (the shogun era). It was quite a majestic view of the castle. The first initial built castle was burnt and this was rebuilt abuot hundred years ago, if i dont remember wrongly. They have a fish that possess dragon head on the top of the castle. This is to prevent any misfortune to befall the castle again. The visit of this castle will give you a feeling that you time travel back to the Tokugawa era. The steps were quite high cos horses will gallop on it to reach the top of the castle.

To visit the inner part of the castle, you will need to pay 600 yen for a visit and similar to the Sanjusangendo Temple, you are not allow to take pictures on the display artifacts. Therefore, we decided not to go in. Taking pictures outside was more than satisfying.


Around the castle, they sell quite a number of snacks such as the ice kacang like drinks, ice cream and takoyakis. The takoyakis here didnt taste as good as in Tokyo as they were as dried as the ones that you can find in Takashimaya but of course with a bigger chunk of tako inside the balls.

I think Japanese really love red beans. In whatever dessert that they are eating, they must have red beans. Red beans red beans everywhere. Luckily I am a red beans lover. I dont really like green beans though unless I need to detox. Else I wont be taking green beans.

Somewhere in between the train station and the castle is a stadium and there was an event going on that day. We were quite surprised to see the place was filled with people and there were stalls set up. We later found out that there was a concert going on. Gosh the people were just too many.

There are stalls selling fried noodles, red beans filling doraemon cakes, dorayakis, strawberries coated in sugar, egg pancakes. We bought the fried noodles and egg pancakes to try and see if it is tasty. And it was as good as it looks. Very very tasty especially the fried noodles. Though only cabbage and noodles, it tastes really good when fried with their special vinegar. We have two packets of this!!!

Our trip in Japan seems tiring cos we walked a lot but IT WAS DEFINITELY AND ENJOYABLE TRIP!!!! ^_^ See a lot, walk a lot and eat a lot! Overall, I like the place, the people and the food! I hope someday sometime I will go back to Japan again. *Grins*Wink*Wink*

Nishiki Food Market, Kyoto

Nishiki Food Market isnt a tourist spot actually. It is one of the area recommended in a BIG file of Kyoto Budget Inn under the section "What to do" in Kyoto. So we visited this area and see what it is like. Since majority of Japan is very well-organized, the food market is no surprise at all. Basically, it was a market where it sells a lot of food stuffs especially seafood and some fermented vegetables and fruits! The best thing here is you can always sample the fermented stuff and bonito if you are curious how it will taste like. The stall owner are very hospitable too. Even if you say you wont buy after you test, they wont get angry at all! First stall where we buy our food is this dessert stall. Each we bought one to sample how it taste like. But of course the lookalike we didnt buy it. Just those that looks different from each other. Hehehehe....

They have a lot of grill seafood too. Fishes, squid (tako), scallop etc. They really looks tempting but didnt manage to eat them all ....

This is what I regret the most!!! The fresh abalone is as big as my hands and it only cost 50SGD. Gosh I really regretted we didnt buy this and ask the stall owner to grill it. It really looks umph ....... But we tried the scallop though. 3 cost about 12SGD and each is as big as half of your hand. It taste sooooooooo FRESH and SUPERB!!!

Along the way, they have a lot of bentos too. The bentos are meant for workers who are working for their lunch. We also bought a few boxes here for our lunch before we depart to our next destination. The bentos really taste AWESOME!! OIISHIIIII desu. Their taste are similar to those that you can get in the japanese restaurant in Singapore. I am not exaggerating here ... IT'S TRUE!!!!

They have a variety of vegetables with different colours too. They all looks delicious to me. But didnt manage to try this cos the food we bought is already a lot ...

We bought some of the salted vegetables back. You can sample each of them. Ranging from olive to raw pepper. Some taste good, some well not to my taste. Dont really like them. However, they are not cheap though. But can last for very long as you will only need a little bit for a big bowl of rice or porridge. Just mix them together. And i think it will taste not that salty.

Here is another stall selling grills. You can find a lot of grill eels here too ...

Here, there are a few stalls that sell a lot of fermented vegetables. It doesnt smell good but it taste good though ^_^