Journey to Japan: Laundry, Kit Kats, and a Cool Evening Waterfall

Day 12

We started the day slowly, catching up on rest and finally doing our laundry. After days of traveling, it was getting… critical. As predicted, our wet clothes far exceeded the drying capacity of the hotel machines. The result: our room transformed into a charming laundromat-themed installation piece. Socks on chairs, shirts draped over lampshades, very avant-garde.

Later in the day, we met up with S for a little stroll through Osaka’s underground city, a vast, labyrinthine network of shopping arcades, stations, and restaurants beneath Umeda and Namba. Easy to get lost in, hard to leave without buying something. Which is exactly what happened: L and I ended up in a Don Quijote and walked out with a respectable stash of souvenir chocolates, mostly flavoured Kit Kats in varieties that make European chocolate purists quietly weep.

For a late lunch, just L and I headed to a place serving Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. That hit the spot. We got seats at the hotplate, where we could watch our lunch materialise layer by layer into a towering pancake of batter, cabbage, pork, noodles, egg, and sauce. Equal parts chemistry experiment and comfort food.

In the afternoon, S and E led us to Minoh Falls, a nature getaway just outside the city. The walk was peaceful, lined with trees and shrines, and ended at a waterfall that reminded me of Bad Urach back in Germany, a little pocket of nature just beyond the city limits. On the way back, the sun had already set, and the forest path gradually shifted from dusk into near-darkness, the whole walk taking on that quiet, atmospheric anime vibe you usually only see in post-credit scenes or slow, melancholic episodes.

After the nature and nostalgia, it was time to grill things again: 90-minute Yakiniku in Umeda. Food arrived fast, our grill stayed full, and we tried nearly everything on the menu. The Wagyu was nice, but, whisper it, maybe a little underwhelming given the hype. I also tried more of Suntory’s beverage experiments: "White Soda" and "White Water", both of which tasted like slightly confused cousins of Ramune. The green melon soda still wins.

To digest, we took a walk through and around Osaka Station, letting the nighttime cityscape do its thing. Tall mirrored towers, slow waves of people, blinking lights, all very cinematic. We detoured through some narrow alleys leading towards the river, full of clubs and sharply dressed touts trying to lure people in. They gave us a quick glance and then moved on, apparently, we weren’t quite the clientele they were looking for. Fair enough. I was still wearing my hiking shoes.