We chose an AirBnb unit near Nagai Park in southern Osaka in the Higashisumiyoshi area. We read about it and gotten in touch with the host. As with how we planned our holidays, we decided on self-driving, and with concept of “living locally”, we chose this lovely quiet neighbourhood. AirBnb allows us to book the entire licenced guesthouse with full home facilities and for 5 nights, we became a typical Japanese resident. Pardon me, my Japan trip posts are going to be a photo gallery of sorts because they were just too many instagrammable sights.
We arrived at night, so we grabbed some bento sets from nearby family mart and settle in. The next morning, we simply had a morning neighbourhood walk and immediately fell in love with the surrounding. There were the neighbourhood shrine and a little farm. On the first day, we simply explored the area – especially the market, always our first stop everywhere.
Komakawa Shopping Street
We head to the local shopping street/market for brunch. It was merely 1 km away, so we left our car at home. So up till here, we were all just strolling around. It was the end of autumn, just the beginning of winter, so it wasn’t very cold. Outdoor walking was really nice. The entire street was sheltered and at least a km long. Instead of seating down at a restaurant or cafe, we simply walked and ate whatever interesting things we set sights on.
Then the ladies suddenly have an idea. To get fresh foods from the market and cook a Japanese dinner, using all the local ingredients (including rice and udon). It turned out, there were lots of interests from my kids too. They wanted Kobe beef, fresh seafood for sashimi and for me, a bottle of sake to complement the food – Not driving for the day anyway.
Enjoying the lovely Home
Instead of walking some more, the ladies decided they would just head back home to make dinner. I took the children and teenagers to Nagai Park which is 1.5km away from the house. I will cover it in my next post. But here, the place we called home for 5 nights really gave us the sense of being local and felt at home. The Sun sets at about 4 pm, so it felt like dinner time.
And it turned out, this was the mode of what we were to be doing for most days.
gobassky