Hey Hive!

If you missed the last couple of posts, we're currently on a new journey through Japan with my family and Sean, traveling from Tokyo to Osaka! Since we've been here before but it's my relatives' first time we had to bring them to all the popular spots we visited previously already, but it's all good.

Last week, we visited the famous Fushimi-Inari Taisha, aka the shrine with thousands of red gates! The temples themselves were really elegant and intricate structures too! But unfortunately it was peak travel period and was thus ridiculously crowded.. So it was tough to get a decent photo but we tried our best.

Anyway, after that we were pretty much done in Kyoto so we took the train back to Osaka!

21 December 2017. Thursday.

The sun was quickly setting by the time we boarded the shinkansen back to Osaka.

It was a quick ride though thankfully. In less than 20 minutes, we were back in Osaka! And my cousin, who is a huge Pokemon fan wanted to visit the Pokemon Center here in Osaka so we headed there since we were at Osaka station anyway.

They even had special Christmas-themed Pokemon merch!

We've been to quite a few Pokemon Centers before, but each of them has a slightly different layout and standees of different Pokemon so it was cool to see! I'm not sure if the merchandise is any different though, since there's just so much of it in the store.

But it was so cool to see this huge pokeball that's signed! I'm not sure who signed it but I'm guessing it's the people from the Pokemon company or Game Freak!

Everything looked so cool and neat! Thankfully it wasn't too crowded.

I saw this gachapon machine with Pokemon college pins that looked so cool! But it was pretty pricey unfortunately, so I didn't get it. And I wasn't even sure where I'd put it anyway.

This sign looked so bland I think the ones at the other Pokemon Centers looked better.

After that we just went around the Daimaru mall and saw a lot of cute stuff! Like this:

And some Snoopy calendars!

I think these are like New Year cards that looked so cute!

I love these stamps too! Stamps are a big thing in Japan since they use personalised stamps instead of signatures, andthey have so many cute designs!

We also saw this weird display in the bagpack section haha.

At the sticker section there were special Capcom B-Side Label stickers, and they even included Okami stickers! Okami is such an awesome game that doesn't get much recognition and the art style is so great too!

We ended up getting these special ones!

And at the top of Daimaru, there was a special surprise waiting for us!

It was a special Snoopy pop-up store to celebrate Peanuts' 50th anniversary!

Man 50 years, what an amazing milestone for an iconic comic series! And there were special anniversary merch to celebrate too!

Snoopy is a really huge series in Japan, so much so that they even an entire Snoopy Museum! And

And to commemorate this special anniversary, there was a board with Charles Schulz's daughter's special message to Japanese fans!

But there was so much other merch here too!

It was so cool to see Japanese-themed Snoopy merch like this:

And of course they had the super expensive merch available here too:

And these super fragile-looking but detailed figurines:

They looked so well-designed and painted tho!

They even had these special photo frames:

And just all sorts of Snoopy products!

I was so tempted to get a coaster but it looked pretty thin compared to the special B-Side Label one I had already gotten.

There was also this special booth where you could write a special message to wish Snoopy a happy anniversary!

I wasn't very good but I drew something for Snoopy regardless.

In the middle where the display was there were also all these open shelves with all sorts of Snoopy figurines!

And baby toys?

There was even a Snoopy balloon!

This was what the pop-up store looked like from the outside:

And here was the special photo spot they set up!

This sofa they setup outside was so cute! The Snoopy plush was a little dirty, but I loved the couch!

What a special surprise! And I was even wearing a Snoopy shirt too!

For dinner, we went to have burgers!

I tried a different burger at Lotteria this time! I don't remember what it was though, but I think the bacon cheeseburger was better. This one was still good though! And the mozzarella sticks were soo good as usual!

After that we went back out to walk the streets of Nippombashi again!

There were a lot of Kobe Beef stalls here for some reason, and it smelled so good, so we decided to try it and see how it compared to the one we had in Kobe last time!

It's always cool to see the beef being cooked right in front of us!

And this was our order! There are 3 types of meat that you can order: 1) Red meat, 2) Prime red meat and 3) Mega Prime Kobe Beef. I think we got the most expensive one since we wanted to try Kobe beef, gotta go with the most legit one right.

They even had an award for this beef! I'm not sure what award or certification it is, but it looked pretty impressive.

I think the beef was pretty good! I don't think it was as juicy as the one we had in Kobe though. But tbh I couldn't really tell the difference. Also we had the Kobe beef so long ago so I couldn't really recall the taste anyway. Oh welp. It was still really tasty though! And grilled to medium well perfection. Yummy!

I guess that's all for now! Sorry for the long post but I'm a huge Snoopy fan as you can probably tell. Tune in next week to see which tourist spot we go to next! Hint: It's a really historical place in Osaka.

Thanks so much for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

Check out my previous post in this series!

TacoCat’s Travels #120 (Japan 5.0: Osaka): Through the Foxy Gates of Fortune? ⛩