Osaka’s craziest neighbourhood | Shinsekai travel guide

Want to avoid the crowds of Dotonburi in Osaka? Then watch this Osaka travel guide!

Osaka is the food capital of Japan, with most tourists flocking to Dotonburi in the Namba district of the city. Avoid the crowds and head to Shinsekai, Japan’s wacky 1912 vision of a futuristic neighbourhood.

In this Japan travel vlog, we head from Kyoto to Osaka to explore this vibrant part of the city, eating Osaka’s famous food, kushikatsu, reveal our local hiddens gems (we lived near Osaka for 2 years!), and relax in Japan’s best onsen (according to us).

Shinsekai has a reputation for being the most dangerous place in Japan, but from our experience its always been fine.

Where we went:
00:00 Kyoto hotel
01:11 welcome to Shinsekai
02:24 Yokozuna restaurant & Kushikatsu
04:22 local tips & Spa World Onsen
07:40 a Japanese pharmacy
08:53 Shittenoji Temple
10:47 Nobeha No Yu Onsen
14:21 4 star hotel room tour

#osakatravel #japanvlog #japanfood

Ohaiyogozaimasu from Kyoto, it’s day  eight of our trip. I’m a little bit   worse for wear this morning, we were out  late doing karaoke, uh which is amazing. and yeah today we’re off to Osaka to  continue the next leg of our trip.  

The hotel room is looking a little bit messy  and as you’ll know if you’ve been to Japan,   if you don’t manage your coins well  you’ll end up with thousands of them. coffee, coffee. it’s very sweet. I bought some  sushi. look at this, Sushi from the family Mart  

Is better than Sushi you get in England  and for like one percentage of the price. so here we have a salmon variety pack, 415 Yen.  for this amount of sushi you’d pay like 15 quid   in the UK which is obscene, but um yeah  now in Japan I’m living my Sushi dreams.

We will soon make a brief stop at Temmabashi. take a picture take a picture. so we’re in  a Shinsekai, I definitely recommend coming   here for taking pictures and for lunch. I think  it’s a good lunch spot, well maybe even dinner  

Because it all lights up really nicely in  the evening. and in terms of food Shinsekai   is where you want to come for Kushikatsu, one  of the Osaka Specialties. Yokozuna because it’s   uh well… Yokozuna means like the grand champion  of sumo and you can get Yokozuna size food there.

So you can get absolutely massive portions,  mega size portions, like a kilo of chips,   a kilo of takoyaki, Mega beers. um and yeah  Shinsekai is just a really cool fun area. you   definitely have seen photos of it. I think it’s  a do not miss in Osaka. but I mean if you take a  

Look on instagram. if you look around, look at the  buildings, look at the buildings, so colourful. yeah, if we take it this way a little  bit, look at the outside of Yokozuna   it’s a pretty insane. it’s just an insane  part of town. one of the reasons why it’s  

Called Yokozuna is because it has photos of  some of the famous Suma wrestlers of old. is that a photo? it’s not a  photo it’s a painting or design. so this is the menu at Yokozuna, I can’t  open it with one hand. Yokozuna is famous  

For famous for Kushikatsu. um this is all  Kushikatsu, it’s effectively these small   skewers which are deep fried and you order  them individually so one skewer is one order. they also have this funky menu for  interesting items like the lizard,   I don’t even know what that is.  that’s frog. scorpion. Sparrow,  

Uh Sparrow is actually quite common in Japan  although we’re not going to order any today. Its the size of your head. I know! okay  so this Mega beer is about a litre. uh   it’s about £6 in the UK which is 1,200 Yen. I  recommend. watashi no osusume wa, kore desu.

So here we have our first portion, our  first round of kushikatsu sticks,this is   what they look like. this is a deep fried  stick of something. actually that’s a,   that’s a sausage. it’s a Frankfurt. definitely  not. it is! and we’ve got a range of things;  

Potato, Lotus root, pepper, um prawn,  eel, chicken breast and then you dip it   in the sauce and then you clean up with  the the Cabbage. are you excited Ash? so Yokozuna was always one of our  favourite places to come in Osaka   when we were living in Kokbe. The  Kushikatsu is super super good,  

It may not get the best reviews but that’s because  it’s a bit of a rough around the edges joint. oh wow papped me coming out of the toilet.  although I realized this as I left, that I’d  

Never locked before so like I tried it but I’ve  clearly done it the wrong way cuz then I unlocked   it and it was locked so someone could have come in  the whole time. do you like to live dangerously?

Japan is a very very safe country and you’re  almost definitely not going to run into any   problems but Shinsekai is an area that  you’re maybe going to pay slightly more   attention to because it is known for being a  little rough around the edges. especially um  

At night I guess. but I’m sure nothing  will happen. I mean in the in the many   times we’ve been here we’ve been fine  yeah nothing has ever happened. Yet. you can actually go up the tower  but it’s quite expensive and I  

Think it’s better to get a view out  over Osaka you should go up Umeda. I was going to say we should take a  selfie here with that in the back. another thing in uh Shinsekai is Spa World.  it’s got a bit of a interesting reputation  

For being um… what are you doing? I’m  pointing at it. okay. it’s a super sento,   so basically sort of like an onsen but much bigger  with so many baths so many different styles of   bath. it also has a pool, entertainment room,  so you could spend a lot of time there but it  

Does have a sight reputation for being touristy.  um but we’ve been many times and we think… I’m   a tourist and I love it! um effectively it’s got  two massive flaws of onsens, one is for women,   one is for men and they alternate every month.  so one floor is like European style baths from  

All the European countries and the other one  is Asian style, so like Japan obviously, China,   Singapore blah blah blah. it’s brilliant. I  would highly recommend you go to contrast it   and compare it to a normal Japanese onsen.  I think it’s worth going to a super sento  

Like Spa World. yeah Spa world not to be  confused with soap land which is something   else! something else. you can Google, you  can Google soap land. if you know you know. if you come to Osaka for a night out and you  haven’t booked yourself a hotel cuz it’s Ultra  

Expensive or whatever, Spa world is open 24  hours so you can always go after your night   out although it’s not recommended. you’re not  really supposed to go to an onsen after you’ve   been drinking. like the relax room and you  can go chill out and maybe have a little kip.

Yo no way it’s a beer vending machine. we  had one of these in Tamondai in Kobe where   we lived. can you imagine having this in  the UK a literal vending machine for beer.   how do they stop young underage people  from drinking? the one near us as well  

Had um you could buy a bottle of red wine or  a whole bottle of whiskey straight from the   vending machine and it’s glass bottles and  they would just fall down. the 9% Chuhai.   daisuki desu ne. I like this, no I like  this. the mini uh, fat the chode asahi.

It is a bit mad around here like it’s just  very colourful um quite loud quite loud.   it’s very in your face. it’s very un-japanese  in that way, but it is Japanese but it is this   is this is quintessential Japanese.  oh I’m being bitten by a mosquito ow.

Its the fish restaurant. you’ve got a  fishing rod and you put it in the river   and you catch your own fish and  then they cook it and you eat it. what sort of drugstore sells knives? what is  it it? smells really nice. it’s hair oil. we  

Tried to find it in England but they don’t  have it. didn’t you look in like 10 shops?   I went to 10 shops and couldn’t find it and you  say I don’t put effort into your presents. how  

Dare you. oh I found it in Japan. I’m not  flying halfway around the world or will I? right to the east of shinsekai is the dobutsuen  zoo, Osaka’s Zoo. uh I mean you’re more than   welcome to go there although from what  I’ve heard from people who live nearby  

Apparently it’s quite sad so we we never went  and probably aren’t going to go this time either. so we’re on our way from shinsekai to our  next stop Shittenoji Temple and in the back,   Abenoharukas. which once was Japan’s tallest  building or tallest Residential Building uh  

But it’s now been overtaken  by that new one in Tokyo. last time we were here we got  this picture with zero crowds. shittenoji is definitely the temple to come, to  the place to come to if you want a bit of peace  

And quiet out of the mentalness and craziness  and busyness of Osaka. and its also right next   to shinsekai so it’s definitely worth it.  it’s about a 5 minute walk from shinsekai   to get here. very contrasting. a bit bright.  and you get all of this. a really amazing  

Buddhist temple with two statues of Buddha  which were closed last time we came here   but um I mean just have a look there’s no  one here. big Pagoda, big Temple buildings. I highly recommend. and when you come to Shittenoji,  the best photo spot is right here,  

If you can guess where I am or imagine  where I am. Ashley’s all the way over there,   you want your photographer to be there and  you want to be right here in this corner.   make a cool pose looking up at the Pagoda and  you’ll get a really good photo, like this.

Another reason why you should consider  coming to Shittenoji… so cute so many   um terrapins lounging in the sun. oh to  be a terapin lounging in the Sun. which   rock would you choose as your favourite  Rock? oh clearly the ramp’s the way to go.

So we are off to an onsen, our favorite onsen  in the entirety of Japan. this is Nobeha No Yu   in East Osaka in Tsuruhashi. yeah super nice we  haven’t been here for 3 years that’s what Theo’s  

Google Maps said when we did directions. “you’ve  not been here in 3 years”. it is a bit strange   to go to onsen when it’s so hot I was expected  to go so much more on this trip but it’s just  

Been so warm it’s been unseasonably warm for  November. I mean this is like we’re halfway   through November and it’s 25° that’s not normal.  I’m too hot wearing this I wish I was wearing a   t-shirt um but my back does hurt so much from  walking around all the time like lots and lots  

Of walking. we’re getting like 25,000 steps  a day um. a day baby. so looking forward to   relaxing in the onsen it’s just around the corner  I know that we’re almost here because there’s a   massive Pachinko and Slot place right next door  so we’re walking this way down the street and  

It’s this massive massive massive building  this one’s really good because it has so   many different types of bar like there’s big but  big variety of bars out ones there’s some plunge   pools sauna steam room like foot baths there’s  this interesting one it’s like a bench. it’s  

Like a bench um with the water that sort of… you  sit down and the water goes over your shoulders. give us a smile, nice. you have to take your shoes off um straight  away um handy lockers. put them in a locker  

Of which there are many, which means it’s  quite empty which is good. obviously we   can’t um film it inside the onsen because  you have to get completely naked. um,   otherwise this would be on a different website.  but we’ll let you know how it was when we come  

Out. we’re going to be knacked afterwards but  refreshed. we’ve got bath towel, a face towel,   ready to rumble ready to rumble. the blue  ones generally blue curtains are for male and   the red curtain it’s female. looking  forward to this let’s go. 2 hours later. that’s onsen in a word.

So nice. nice. so we’ve just finished our  onsen, so relaxed so relaxing when we were   in there when I was in mine um they do like  some sort of sauna ritual I’m not sure they   come with paddles and fan was there at you  it was brutal but I’m now feeling Ultra I  

Feel like reborn I could go to sleep yeah  but I could also run there’s resting areas   like just there where people are asleep  so we can’t be too loud not being L and   then the restaurant sort of area cream is  traditional after ice cream beer or or milk.

You beast. onsen is relaxing but so relaxing that  you’re asleep now we need to check into the hotel. where we going oh we don’t even  need a card oh we do need a   card oh there we go whoops this is AR  restricted floor this is a restricted

Floor checking in at our hotel in Namba in all  sucker this is nice it’s like a um apartment   Hotel so here’s the tour front door space  cabinets washing machine microwave Kettle   teas and stuff there’s bottles of water nice  a whole kitchen area this is actually bigger  

Than the kitchen area we had in coob where I  put my phone and Ashley’s L her phone uh all   our stuff bathroom in there this is a very  standard looking found it standard Japanese   B this is a much bigger this is way bigger  than a let’s let’s recreate our apartment  

Tour there we go recreating the apartment  tour thumbnail I’m all onon out how about you I Blissful I would say