After a rainy day at Universal Studios Japan, we woke up the next morning with the goal of exploring more of the city. The first order of business was to visit Kids Plaza Osaka which is a children’s museum in Osaka City Kita Ward. We spent several hours playing in the exhibit with the tube slider, playing instruments in the culture center, jumping into the subway car within the society exhibit, and doing experiments in the Kids Plaza Hall.
After visiting the children’s museum, we went to the Chouette Owl Cafe. There, we got to see and interact with various types of owls. The girls enjoyed seeing owls in person for the first time, as well as learning about each of them.
After visiting with the owls, we stopped at the cafe upstairs for ice cream. We highly recommend getting some! Just be mindful of the time as you have to order the ice cream 30 minutes before your end time.
Full transparency: after visiting the owl cafe, I think we all walked away feeling a little off. When we visited the pig cafe in Tokyo, the pigs were roaming around freely. When we were at the owl cafe, all of the owls were chained down to their respective log. We understood you can’t just have owls flying all over the place for both human and owl safety. It just didn’t feel right, but that’s just us.
From there, we ventured down to Dotonbori where we hopped on the Pirates of Osaka River Cruise, located directly in front of Ebisu Tower, the world’s first oval Ferris wheel.
This 20-minute river cruise was reasonably priced and gave us a unique view of Dotonbori, including The Glico Running Man and other iconic signs.
From there, we walked around the area, looked at other iconic signs on the neighboring streets, and went on a search for melonpan. As we were walking the streets, Austen saw a sign for Garth Brooks Live Music Bar. We had a really hard time locating the bar but finally found it. It was an extremely small bar below street level, and we got there before the live music started so had the place to ourselves. The bartender was incredibly nice and chatted with us while we had a drink.
Although we had a short diversion at the Garth Brooks bar, we were still on the hunt for melonpan which we had heard was a must-have while visiting Dotonbori. Fortunately, after walking around aimlessly for a little bit, we found a random line in the middle of the street in front of a tiny little stand. We had found it and it did not disappoint! Melonpan is a Japanese sweet bun with a crispy, cookie-like crust and is filled with massive scoops of ice cream. It was delicious and my mouth is watering now as I’m writing about it…
Overall opinion of Osaka
We loved Osaka and highly recommend visiting if you’re in Japan. This was a great city to visit with kids due to Universal Studios Japan, the Kids Plaza, and all the lights and iconic signs of Dotonbori. Some of must-do activities in Osaka include visiting an animal cafe, taking a river cruise in Dotonbori, and getting some delicious melonpan. We hope you get the opportunity to visit Osaka and can’t wait to hear all about your time in this amazing city!
Oliver Family Adventures 
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