News — Travel

Are you looking for the quintessential sushi experience? Try Fukukizushi in Osaka. The restaurant dates from arounnd the 1930s and has branches in select locations including the 7th F of the department store Takashimaya in Namba. The "honten" or main store near Nihonbashi station offers you a front row seat in a sushi making performance that is part art part theatre. Let me be clear it is expensive. If you order "otoro" and other expensive items expect to pay top dollar. The father/son show and supporting cast produce some of the best sushi in Osaka if not Japan. It compares...

Tucked away in the back streets of Minami in downtown Osaka is a narrow alley, paved with stone named Hozenji Yokocho. The alley is full of bars and restaurants, a scene that can be found in many Japanese cities. I've been walking along this alley on and off for 30 years now and little has changed. One restaurant that stands out in the alley is Wasabi, a small restaurant that specilaises in "kushikatsu" a local delicacy of deep fried food on skewers. Kushikatsu's origins is cheap deep fried food for the labourers of Osaka, particularly in the area known as...

I'd like to introduce you to one of my favourite markets in Japan, the Kuromon market located in the Nipponbashi district in the Minami area of Osaka city. The market is open on a daily basis to the general public and houses all manner of vendors selling fresh seafood, fruit and vegetables, meat, pickles and more. There are many vendors of seafood who specialise in tuna and also "fugu" a poisonous blowfish considered a delicacy by many. In the market there are also many restaurants, I recommend the udon restaurant ASOKO, that makes all its noodles by hand and serves...

Mt Koya, a buddhist village dating from the 9th century located in the mountains of Wakayama south of Osaka. On a hot humid day in late summer Mt Koya offers relief from the heat and an amazing insight into a village devoted to Buddhism that functions to this day. It is accessible from Osaka on the Nankai line and takes about 90 minutes. "Okunoin" houses the tomb of the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, Kukai and is surrounded by a forest of giant cedar trees and more than 200,000 graves, representing a who's who of Japanese history. In...

In the autumn of 2009 I hiked along the Yamanobe trail, a "road" that dates to at least the 8th century that meanders through rural villages and farms on the eastern edge of the Nara basin. It is considered to be one of Japan's oldest roads/trails. There are many shrines and burial mounds dating from the time that Nara was the centre of power in Japan. If you are looking for experiences outside the big cities this is one worth considering. It is about 40 m by train from Osaka and can be accessed from Tenri station on the Kintetsu...