Best Things to Do in Osaka: Food, Lights & Day Trips

Osaka is Japan with the volume up and the calendar cleared. The city's experiences are food, light, shopping and day trips - and the best of them happen after dinner, which is exactly the point.

The food experiences

• Dotonbori street food at night: takoyaki, kushikatsu and sweet-smelling grills
• Kuromon Ichiba Market before noon, before the deep-fried queues
• Okonomiyaki cooked at your table - the Osaka signature you build yourself
• A standing bar in Shinsekai for the city's most honest prices

Views and light

• The Umeda Sky Building's floating garden observatory at dusk
• Dotonbori's neon canyon after 8pm - the canal reflection is the photo
• TeamLab Botanical Garden: the light-art garden north of the city

City soft spots

• Osaka Castle park in the morning, with the kaida maze on the ground floor
• Shinsaibashi shopping arcade for Japan's widest covered shopping
• Shinsekai's retro streets and the Tsutenkaku tower for a preserved 1950s district

Day trips that count

The Osaka rule

Go slow in the heat of noon and fast in the cool of the evening. Osaka's daylight attractions are pleasant, but its night is the destination.

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