Japan trip Spring 2016 Part 10: Day 9 - Utsubo Park Rose Festival, Namba/Shinsaibashi & departure from KIX in Osaka

Our last day in Japan - May 22! Time to do all the last minute things while trying not to overbuy and not be able to pack it lol.
In the morning, S and I got ready early so we could finish packing and head out quickly to do a few errands by 10:00. While exiting the JR Osaka station through the Southeast exit, I couldn't help but try and photograph the flowers on the ground!

Lmao it would have been nice to have gotten my picture with the flowers instead of S's since it matched my outfit a bit better, but I'll take what I can get.

We walked to the fishing store just a few blocks away and got there a few minutes prior to their opening time as planned.

We entered the store and just quickly grabbed what S wanted to buy.

And then we went back into JR Osaka station and had to find our way to...Hankyu Department Store (again for me -__-). He wanted to buy his own boxes of kinako mochi from the same place my mom purchased from the previous night. They only have 4 stocked every day, so it's just as well and I guess not completely out of our way to revisit.

We picked up a few things to eat for breakfast, returned to the hotel and finished packing up for the last time! (Thank goodness.)

And then the four of us checked out the hotel, left our bags in the lobby and went back out to the Eki Marche section of JR Osaka station.

We planned to eat at this kaiten zushi restaurant that S and I had tried in August! It was actually the first one we had dared to try in Japan lol.

It takes a little more vocal participation than the kaiten zushi place we had eaten at in Otaru. Instead of writing your order on a piece of paper and handing it to the chef, you just get their attention and order verbally lol.  There's also two layers of conveyor belt for plenty of choices if you're too shy to try and order.

There were a few things that my dad thought were really interesting to try and ofc they also had to eat chu toro and otoro.

Cute (but kind of random?) flower display I spotted while we were exiting the Eki Marche.

We caught the subway's Midosuji line to get from Umeda to Honmachi station. We've often transferred there before, but have never explored this area.

Based on what I had looked up prior to arriving, we left the station from "Exit 2" but still had quite a bit of a walk. I think maybe there is a exit that's closer to the park but it depends which line you catch. You'll either do some walking underground in the station or above ground on the streets.

We arrived at Utsubo Park where they had a long line of stalls for the Utsubo Park Rose Festival with all kinds of different foods, snacks, fruits, desserts, goods and activities!

We didn't find anything we wanted to purchase but it was so crowded lol. There were people everyone on the benches and the grass including some families with tents! Once we reached the other end of the stalls, we were finally able to see the center of the park with a shallow water feature that many children were taking advantage of on such a hot day.

And then we were able to see the "main attraction" which was the flowers and roses! The layout of the park is really nice to just kind of walk and browse.

We walked up one side and then down the other.

So many great flowers to photograph and see. It was just really really hot though lol. And also really crowded!

Once we felt that we had enough sun, we walked back through the stalls and stopped to watch this vendor perform a few "tricks" with the Turkish "ice cream"

And then we decided to try it for ourselves.

The texture was super interesting. I'm not sure if it's for me because I'm really sensitive to that kind of thing but it was certainly cool to see and try!

Happened upon this mascot as we were exiting! He's on rollerblades wtf. I can't imagine how hot it is in there + how hard it is to navigate around all the people.

I don't know much about this park, but it must be really popular for dog owners. There were tons and tons of dogs! (And apparently my father took these pictures which is just a small sample of the various dogs at the park.)

They were everywhere lol.

We got back to the station and decided to get the all day subway pass even though we probably should have figured that out before our first ride of the day. We figured the convenience was worth it.

And it kind of was because we entered the gates nearest to the ticket area and it turned out to be the wrong way so we had to immediately turn around and exit the same gates to get to the correct area wtf.

We caught the subway to Namba next! I figured this would be where we would be doing our last minute shopping and there's lots of different kinds of shops and stores. Ofc, it was crowded as heck here too lol.

S wanted to get a new pair of JINS, so that's where we stopped first.

There was a small discount for getting two pairs so I ended up getting a pair for myself too.

I stopped by a Cecil McBee and almost got a top and skirt set that I thought would be great for work, but I was too lazy to try it on, so I decided to pass.

Just upstairs from the Cecil McBee store is a Ank Rouge and Be Radiance combination area.

I was super tempted by these items too, but decided not to buy anything :|

We came upon a three-story store selling Sanrio items and I FINALLY was able to find the item that Rebby requested. So last minute, but still good.

The store had a lot of great selection actually.

We made it all the way to Shinsaibashi and I found what I was looking for - OPA.

I looked briefly in Swankiss for Rennie (but no luck again).

And briefly in DaTuRa to give myself another chance to buy something for myself lol

I tried this top and skirt on but I really didn't like the fit of the top. I think maybe it's meant for someone with a lot bigger bust? The skirt fit well though.

Also quickly walked through Rady. I love the hangers! There's such a great selection of gyaru brands in this mall for sure, including Michelle Macaron! Tbh I'm a bit too chicken sh!t to try to even browse in those stores alone though lol.

I finished up my shopping and then we caught the subway back to Umeda.

Last, last minute shopping meant dashing quickly into the Daiso by Umeda EST. I think this area is another OPA actually? I didn't end up buying anything despite really looking lol.

By this time, it was just over an hour before we had to meet my parents back at the hotel, so I wanted to get something quick to eat. The easiest solution was to go with what was familiar. So that meant I could eat at my favorite ramen place!

S decided to try this ...I think it was pork? small bowl in addition to his ramen.

Yum, shoyu ramen with a lot of garlic in it as well lol.

We went back towards the hotel and took our time picking out a few pastries to eat at the airport/for the plane ride.

It's a long story, but we ended up waiting about 45 minutes for my parents in the lobby of the hotel because...well the reason isn't important lol. But they eventually met up with us successfully, we claimed our bags, packed our last minute shopping, and then went to the KIX shuttle terminal just outside the hotel. In fact, my dad had the hotel staff help us transport our bags over there wtf lol.

We did have quite a few to deal with by the end of everything though. And they were all quite full lol.

shuttle tickets

The bus arrived exactly on time and we were able to board with no issues. It wasn't very full when we arrived and we were at the last stop before heading towards KIX.

S and I got bored and tried on our JINS on the bus lol.

There was a little bit of traffic on the roads, but we got off at KIX's Terminal 1 and found our way over to the Hawaiian Airlines section still within a reasonable amount of time before the flight. The check-in line wasn't too bad and moved at a reasonable pace.

I was glad to unload all of the check-in luggage at the desk wtf lol. We quickly passed through security, got on a little tram thing to get to the gates,

and then just waited to board!

Although actually we all changed our clothes in the bathroom near the gate lol. One bad thing about late night flights is that you potentially have all the grime from earlier in the day on you wtf. The good thing is that you can do one more activity I guess and the day isn't usually "wasted" by just airport time.

Yay, the plane going back has the personal monitors (as expected since we've taken this flight from KIX a number of times now). Which can actually be annoying because the person behind me was JABBING at the headrest for a lot of the flight wtf.

 

Last look out the window before I just KTFO'd for pretty much the entire flight

The first look back at Oahu! (My dad took these bc I was basically still trying to sleep lmao.)

Apparently there was some turbulence during the flight but I didn't notice because I concentrated so hard on sleeping. Wtf.

Time difference is great where we left at 21:30 on May 22 from Japan and arrived at 10:30 on May 22 in Hawaii lol. No photos of our arrival because a lot of the processing areas don't allow photography but the immigration area now has these new self-service machines wtf. Much faster if you understand how to use it and we were able to get through that section very quickly even though we weren't one of the first off the plane and there were a lot of residents ahead of us.
We got our baggage, went through the finals customs check and then my grandpa picked us up!

We arrived back at home, wiped down the suitcases and started unpacking. I wanted to start fighting the jetlag as soon as possible because I had to go to work at 06:30am the next day!

Our last day wasn't mega exciting on a scale of things, but I think we were all kind of looking forward to going home at this point. Because of how full most of our days during the trip are and especially with how much moving around we did during this one in particular, it felt like a really long time!
The Utsubo Park Rose Festival was a really interesting experience. I didn't anticipate how crowded it would be, but the weather was great, the flowers were beautiful and it was something we hadn't done before. The last day was purposefully low key shopping-wise (and just in general) because we couldn't go crazy since we needed to be able to just quickly pack whatever we bought in the lobby of the hotel lol. (And really, because we ended up meeting up a little later than we had anticipated, we were rushing a little bit.)
We arrived back in Hawaii a bit tired from the flight, but we all managed to get up and go to work early the next morning! I think I'm starting to get used to this travel thing lol.

Thank you for reading my daily trip posts, especially if you've been here since "Day 1"! Shopping result posts to come soon as well as a "catch-all" wrap-up post at the end where I'll reflect on the trip as a whole as well as further review the details of the hotels we booked and a few other services.

✦ Japan trip Spring 2016 posts
Part 1: Packing (Liz Lisa outfits) for Hokkaido to Osaka in May
Part 2: Arrival to CTS & Day 1 - Curb Market, Shiroi Koibito Park and shopping in Sapporo
Part 3: Day 2 - Nijo Market, Sapporo Beer Museum & Tanukikoji in Sapporo
Part 4: Day 3 - Exploring Otaru & experiencing the Hakodate Liner
Part 5: Day 4 - Morning Market, Red Brick Warehouses & Mt Hakodate in Hakodate
Part 6: Day 5 - Hokkaido Shinkansen & shopping in Tokyo and Funabashi
Part 7: Day 6 - Tokyo DisneySea
Part 8: Day 7 - Last minute shopping in Omiya and Tokyo & Tokaido Shinkansen to Osaka
Part 9: Day 8 - Kinkakuji in Kyoto & shopping in Osaka
Part 10: Day 9 - Utsubo Park Rose Festival, Namba/Shinsaibashi & departure from KIX in Osaka
Part 11: Liz Lisa shopping, purchases & coordinates
Part 12: Other shopping, purchase & coordinates
Part 13: Travel notes - Hotels, Luggage forwarding & Pocket wifi

✦ Japan trip Autumn 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Summer 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Spring 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Summer 2014 posts