29.03. Osaka Night Out

 In the Osaka Night Out, we plan to show you how Japanese (salarymen) go out to enjoy drinks.

Since it's still a bit too far away, we cannot yet tell you the specific bars and places we go to, but here's an overview of what we have in mind:

- Around 6pm: Meetup in the Temma area. Specific meet-up location will still be shared with you.

- 6:15pm: Start of Night Out at a Traditional Japanese Izakaya. Izakayas are bars meant for meeting up with friends or colleagues to enjoy some smaller Japanese dishes with drinks. They're not restaurants and usually require a reservation, have a seating charge (but you'll get some free snacks in return), and don't have particularly high-class food, but they're the quintessential Japanese drinking experience. When we say "not particularly high-class food" we don't mean the food is bad, it's just that once you're in Japan and see and understand how ridiculously good the food is in proper restaurants, you'll understand why you wouldn't just go to an Izakaya because of the food alone ;) It's the unique combination between location, food, and drink that makes up the Izakaya experience.

- ~8:15pm: Exploring the typical "standing bars" in the Temma area in Osaka. It's custom in Japan to usually go to many really tiny bars that sometimes only sit 4 or 5 people, and often don't have seats at all but only a counter. Here, you can enjoy all sorts of drinks. It's an unwritten rule that you don't spend too much time at any one single bar to also allow other guests to come and enjoy the bar.

- ~09:45pm: Now that you've seen the "local" and authentic drinking culture, we move to the beating heart of Osaka's night life, aka Namba and the Dotonbori area. This is the more touristic side of Osaka's night life, but not without its charms. We will explore the area and its many colourful bars and restaurants. In the side alleys, there's incredible bars and places.

- Around 11pm to midnight: End of official Osaka night out! You can of course keep on going and exploring and drinking, but Chiiya and I will need to prepare some last things for the Wedding on Saturday :) Also, keep in mind that the last trains and subways in Osaka drive around midnight. If you don't catch these last trains, you either will need to get a taxi, or you need to party through the night until around 5am / 6am when the first trains start driving again. That's of course up to you - with the tour ending in Dotonbori, you definitely are at the right spot to keep going until early morning ;) 

Cost: It's difficult to say specifically what this will cost per person, since it will depend on what you order in terms of drinks and food. Rather conservatively (meaning: rather too high than too low), we would guess about 6,000 - 10,000 Yen for the entire night per person. The last time we went out with Japanese friends we went to three Izakayas, the gaming arcade section of a mall to play some Mario Kart, and one bar, and have spent around 9,000 Yen per person.