14 Sep 2008 - Day 3: Changing Accomodation and Den Den Town

Before this Osaka trip, I had wanted to stay in our SQ crew hotel (Sheraton Miyako) throughout. However, the hotel was full during the 1st two days of our trip. As such, I had to book another hotel (IL CUORE) myself, which I did one week before the trip, through the internet. For those who had intention to go Osaka one of these days and want to have some suggestions where to stay, maybe the following information may help.

The first hotel that we stayed in is called IL CUORE. It is a short walk away from Namba station and surrounding shopping street such as Dotonbori, Shinsaibashi, Namba Parks and Den Den Town. Namba station is a very well connected station and there is a direct train from Kansai International Airport.
Hotel IL CUORE is not a large scale hotel but it seems to be a designer hotel. The moment you step into it, you will definitely want to have a good look at the interior design.

There is also a small lounge with two internet workstations which is free for use. Both Jerlene and myself spent quite sometimes at the workstations during our stay there.

The room is not big but is enough for us to stay comfortably. There is even an ionizer in the room and the toilet comes with a bathtub.

We checked out from our room at 11am and since it was too early to check in to the next hotel, we decided to leave our luggages at the hotel lobby and go walk around. Following the map, we walked to Nipponbashi (also know as Den Den Town) which sells a lot of Electrical and Electronic stuff. We had plan to buy some accessories for our Nintendo Wii before the trip and after we saw the price, we were more determined to get them but not today.

Jerlene is really a shopping queen. The moment we stepped into a shop, she will be on her own.

Time flies and unknowingly, we had been there for more than 2 hours. We quickly rushed back to Hotel IL CUORE to get our luggages and it's time to move on to our next Hotel, Sheraton Miyako, which is just 2 train stops away, at Uehommachi.
Miyako is quite a grand hotel and the moment we stepped into the building, there is a floor manager who brought us all the way to the reception to check in. After we got our key, she got a bell boy to bring us to our room. The room is bigger than our previous hotel and more space for Jerlene to run around.

Uehommachi is a much quiet place as compared to Namba. Fortunately, the train station is right below the hotel and there is also direct train to places such as Nara and Kyoto. It was about 4pm when we checked into our room. For the rest of the day, we just walked around the surrounding area. We planned to walk to Tennoji but after a while, we realized it was not so near as indicated on the map. As we walked, there were quite a number of shrine along the road.

On our way back to our hotel, we passed by a petrol kiosk and it was very different. The pump is actually hanging down from the ceiling.
It was dinner time and beside our hotel, there is this building called the HiHi Town. There are quite a number of restaurant so we had our dinner there.