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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/MangoOverflow on 2024-03-10 07:39:44.

Tldr: First time in Japan. Stayed in Osaka, traveled to Japan blind. Had an amazing time going in knowing nothing, extremely satisfied, and want to go back. Also buying a Toto toilet seat at home.

This was my first time in Japan, or overseas ever. I stayed in Osaka next to the Umeda station for 7 nights, and I had the best time of my life.

My partner and I went into this trip intentionally blind. We did no research besides where we wanted our hotel, nearby cities, basic sayings, and etiquette in Japan.

Day 1: We came in late and slept off any jet lag

Day 2: Explored the Umeda station area. Links shopping mall, HEP Five, Lucua, Daiso, and got familiar walking around the subways and train platforms. We also went to the Umeda Sky Tower building in the morning and then went to the Osaka Aquarium at night. We found the tower by walking around, and the aquarium in our hotel pamphlet. After the aquarium there was this huge ferris wheel outside that we rode and saw all the city lights.

Day 3: We traveled to Kyoto and started walking around following signs for anything we saw. We ended up going to the Inari shrine, we walked all the way up to Mt Inari, and spent a good portion of time in the street with all the vendors at the bottom of the shrine. We then visited the Tenryuji Temple which we say from a sign at the station and it was beautiful. Finishing this day we went to the Bamboo forest some people told us about nearby in Arashiyama. That was cool but we see bamboo at home and it was very excavated around the area, it didnt feel like a natural forest

Day 4: Our hotel pamphlet had Nara on it so we went to Nara. Shortly after walking down the station, we ran into a park with deer and doe everywhere. We walked all around and found a convenience store which sold these deer crackers and we got to feed the deer crackers it was amazing. We continued walking around and came across the Nadai-mon gate. I geeked out over this, it was truly incredible. After going through the gate we saw the Todai-ji temple and bought tickets to go inside of that. An unforgettable experience

Day 5: was completely rained and snowed out. We stayed in our hotel and walked through Links Umeda, ate some 7-11 bento boxes, and hung out in Lucua Umeda where one floor had like a “Pokemon Center”, One Piece store, Capcom store, and Nintendo store. I made it a goal to take a photo with as many Luffy statues as I could find, ended the trip with 3 statues.

Day 6: We went to the Osaka castle. We saw the castle riding around the Osaka loop line and thought it looked awesome. The line was so long though even early in the morning we did not go in, just walked the perimeter. There was some street performers that were cool to watch for a handful of minutes. After this we went to Dotonbori and spent some time in the day there, as night started to fall we went down into the Shin Sai Bashi-Suji tunnel. That was a crazy walk, afterwards we stopped by a Tiki bar called the Shaka bar for some drinks.

Day 7: We went back to Arashiyama because we heard we could pet and feed monkeys. We climbed up the hill and did that, it was very cool. We spent the rest of this day going to different shopping centers and ended back up in Dotonbori for the night where we mostly roamed around Den Den town.

I’m sure I am forgetting some things we did, we did so much and we are so satisfied. I am happy we decided to do this trip blind because everything was an exciting surprise. We walked 10 miles a day and about 30 flights a day were climbed. Yearly trips to Japan may become a thing for us now.