Budget-Friendly Osaka: Ramen Museum, Beer Factory Tour, Cheesecake

As one of the major cities in Japan, Osaka offers tourists many options. In a previous post on a one day itinerary in Osaka, I shared some budget-friendly attractions in the city. In this post, I will share three more free or affordable food adventures in Osaka.

Nissin Instant Ramen Museum

This small museum is only a short train ride, about 15 minutes, from central Osaka to Ikeda Station. Entrance is free and you can see the history behind the invention of cup noodle. There is an impressive wall of the various packaging of their products over the years.

The fun part of the museum is you get to customize your own cup noodle! For 300 yen, you can purchase an empty cup from the vending machine. Then you can go to the drawing station and decorate your cup however you like. Next, you bring your cup to the ingredients station where you can choose the flavour powder and toppings to add to your cup before the staff seal it up for you. This makes a great customized souvenir for yourself or someone else!

There is another Instant Ramen Museum in Yokohama if you don�t get a chance to visit the one in Osaka.

Asahi Beer Factory Tour

The Asahi Beer Factory Tour is another free attraction in Osaka. Unlike the Instant Ramen Museum, you need to make a reservation beforehand. You can reserve online on their website (Japanese tours only) or by calling their English hotline +81-6-6388-1943. To get to the factory, take the Hankyu Railway train to Suita Station and walk about 5-10 minutes.

The factory tour was 1.5 hours long and showed the beer making process but we didn�t get to see any assembly lines in action except for the labelling of the bottles part. The last 20 minutes of the tour was taste testing their products. Each person is allowed three glasses of beer. Asahi makes other beverages as well such as Calpis, orange juice, green tea and coffee. If you don�t drink beer, you can opt for those non-alcoholic options.

*No photos because photography was not allowed 

Uncle Rikuro

Japanese cheesecakes are different from western kinds made with heavy cream cheese. They aim to be light and fluffy with only a hint of cheese. One of the famous Japanese cheesecake shops is Uncle Rikuro. They seem to only have shops in Osaka as of now. In other countries like Taiwan and Canada there is a popular Japanese cheesecake franchise called Uncle Tetsu that serves a similar cake but Uncle Rikuro is much better.

Uncle Rikuro

A whole cake is 675 yen and is perfect for sharing (or eating by yourself!) They�re best when eaten fresh and you will see the cake give a slight jiggle when the logo is being stamped. There are some raisins at the bottom of the cake which I don�t care much for but it adds some sweetness. The cake itself has an almost souffl� texture and is very light. You can keep eating and not feel stuffed. Give it a try! You can find their store locations here. 

Osaka 1-Day Itinerary: Beyond Shinsaibashi

I have been to Osaka (??) three times and each time I only visited the Shinsaibashi area (???). On this day trip, I still went to Shinsaibashi but also other places. The first thing I did after I arrived in Osaka was to buy the Eco Card One Day Pass for 800 yen at the metro station. The day pass allows for unlimited use of the city�s subway, bus and tram although I only used the subway to get around.

El Poncho

My first stop was to Shinsaibashi to find a Mexican restaurant called El Poncho. The restaurant is on the 8th floor of a skinny building diagonally from Uniqlo. The decor made me feel like I wasn�t in Japan anymore. I ordered a vegetarian lunch set which came with a soup, a drink, three pieces of cheese quesadilla, and two soft taco skins to wrap the beans, sour cream, guacamole, corn, carrots and kabocha. It wasn�t the most authentic but tasted good and satisfied my Mexican food craving. It is hard to find authentic foreign cuisine in Japan so this place came close enough.

Vegetarian lunch set

I walked to Amerikamura (American Village) after lunch and looked around the shops. There are many second hand shops in the area and you can see the well known Statue of Liberty on top of a building.

Amerikamura

Statue of Liberty in Osaka

From Amerikamura I walked to Namba Station (??) and took the subway to Nipponbashi Station ???)to see Kuromon Market (????). It reminded me of Nishiki Market (???) in Kyoto with the many seafood stalls and souvenir food shops. Many tourists were there buying goods and I heard more foreign languages than Japanese.

Kuromon Market

Den Den Town

I ended up walking through Den Den Town to the next station. There were many anime and electronics stores. I took the subway to Tennoji Station(???)to see Abenos Haruka which is the tallest skyscraper in Japan. On the 16th floor there is a free garden deck to see the city�s view. It was a sunny day and the spacious elevator had large glass windows for a great view on the way up. I sat at one of the benches in the garden and took in the views. There are some restaurants and a cafe an escalator ride up from the 16th floor if you want to enjoy the view with some treats.

Abeno Harukas

Garden on the 16th floor

Osaka city view from Abenos Harukas garden

My next stop was Osaka Castle which was a bit of a walk from Morinomiya Station(???). Osaka Castle was very touristy with the many food trucks and souvenir stores right in front of it. The vibe was different from the more traditionally preserved Himeji Castle only an hour train ride away. There are no food trucks at Himeji Castle and the souvenir store is outside the ticket gate, far from the main keep. However, for tourists who do not have time to visit Himeji Castle, Osaka Castle is still a nice representation of Japanese castles. That's the end of this day trip!

Moat surrounding Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle

Kyoto and Nara 2-Day Itinerary: Day Two

Read Day 1 here - Kyoto: Kiyomizudera Temple, Nishiki Market, Ginkakuji
Read Day 2 here - Nara: Nara Park, Todaiji Temple, Kofuji Temple

In the morning we left Kyoto (??) and took the train to Uji (??) which is famous for matcha. The ride takes 20-30 minutes depending on which train you take (rapid or not.) Our first stop was to Byodo-in (???) which was about a 10 minute walk from the JR station.

Byodo-In

I have been to Byodo-in before (post here) and it was just as beautiful the second time around even in the rainy weather. This time we went into the Phoenix Hall which only finished renovations recently. I suggest going into the museum to watch the video of how they revived the hall and the artifacts they took from the hall to display before going on the hall tour itself. Especially since I don't speak Japanese and the tour itself is all in Japanese, the visuals and English plaques from the museum really helped me to understand its history.

Matcha soba, rice, matcha jelly with red bean and mochi

After the tour we went to Nakamura Tokichi Honten (????) to queue for about 40 minutes. It is a very popular spot to eat matcha goodies and last time I was here I didn't have time to wait 1+ hour so I left. But this time I factored in waiting time into our itinerary because I really wanted to try it and it definitely did not disappoint.

Matcha dessert

We got matcha soba, matcha the drink and matcha jelly with red bean, mochi and matcha ice cream. It might sound like a lot of matcha but the flavours were so fresh and light that it left this matcha-lover very happy. I especially liked the matcha jelly and ice cream dessert.

Following this great lunch, we took the train to Nara (??) and then a city bus to Nara Park (????) to see the famous deer. There really were a lot and I thought I saw a lot of free roaming deer while in Miyajima (??) but Nara definitely outnumbered them. We also saw Todaiji Temple (???) in the area but did not go in.

Nara Park

Todaiji Temple

On our way back to Nara Station we opted to walk instead of taking the city bus to see more of the city. We walked past Kofukiji Temple (???) which were filled with tourists and high school groups like Kiyamizudera.

Kofukiji Temple

Departing from Nara, we took the train to Osaka Station (??) and then a train from Osaka Station to Rinku Town Station (???????) to the premium outlets which took about an hour. The style is very similar to outlets I have been to in North America and feature a lot of those stores as well. From the outlets there is a direct bus to Kansai International Airport.

Rinku Town Outlets

Read Day 1 here - Kyoto: Kiyomizudera Temple, Nishiki Market, Ginkakuji
Read Day 2 here - Nara: Nara Park, Todaiji Temple, Kofuji Temple

Otsu, Uji, Osaka: 1-Day Itinerary

I wanted to make the most of my Seishun 18 pass (??18???) and I was able to pack three prefectures and three cities into one day. Of course this only allowed me to see one or two sights in each city but I didn't mind because I had specific targets for each anyways.

Lake Biwa seen from Otsu, Shiga

Starting from Himeji (??) I took the JR Rapid Service to Otsu (??) which took 100 minutes because I could not ride the Shinkansen with the Seishun 18 pass. Otsu is the capital of Shiga Prefecture (???) and is one of the cities that you can see Lake Biwa (???), the largest freshwater lake in Japan.

From the JR Otsu Station, I took a city bus (200 yen) to Otsu Port to see Lake Biwa. The weather was gorgeous, albeit a bit hot and the gentle breeze made it a pleasant visit. You can rent bikes and ride along the water in the park next to the port. I ate lunch here overlooking the lake and went back to the JR station for the next destination.

Tourist street in Uji

Matcha drink in Uji

The train ride to Uji (??) in Kyoto Prefecture (???) was between 30 to 40 minutes and required one transfer in Kyoto city. From JR Uji Station, there were clear signs and photocopies of instructions for tourists to get the directions to Byodo-In Temple (???). The Byodo-In Temple has a home on one side of the 10 yen coin. The walk to the temple was about 15 minutes and on the way you pass through a souvenir street selling matcha products in every shop since that is what Uji is famous for. The admission to Byodo-In Temple cost 600 yen.

Byodo-in Temple

Comparing the temple on the back of the 10 yen

Inside is the Phoenix Hall

There were a decent number of people inside when I was there in the late afternoon but incomparable to the crowdedness of Kinkakuji (???) in Kyoto. Therefore it was more pleasant to just stand and observe the temple while comparing it to the 10 yen coin in my hand. There were some women in yukata taking photos with their friends which matched the environment very well.

Famous matcha store

After having some matcha dessert at a nearby store, I hopped on the next train to the last city and the last prefecture of the day: Osaka (??) in Osaka Prefecture. The train ride was between 50-60 minutes and required a transfer in Kyoto again.

Shinsaibashi area

Dotonbori

In Osaka, I met my friend at Shinsaibashi (???) to look around the shops and ate some takoyaki around Dotonbori (???). Osaka was very crowded and lively on this Saturday evening. We had a tabehoudai (????) dinner which means all-you-can-eat but the one we went to wasn't that great so I won't mention it.

All in all, my trip covered a decent area and I was able to go about leisurely. If I had more time, I would probably eat more matcha goodies in Uji!

Osaka