Day 7 – Tea, Sushi and Glass Berries
April 21, Osaka
We woke up real late today. Fresh and ready to start another week. We lazed around a bit before going off to the Yamato to get our luggage. No problems at all. Walked it back just a block through a little busy city streets among the other people who are all getting their luggage on the subway and carting it around the town. I was glad we chose delivery.
After we arrived at home, we unpacked and resettled into our rooms. Put some laundry in. Caught up on our social sites, before heading out to do high tea at Osaka Castle.
It finally happened.
I misread a direction and put us on a train in the opposite direction of where we needed to be. We were already running late, and this just solidified the fact that we would not be on time for our tea slot. Thankfully, I realized it pretty early into the trip and we got off. Headed back to where we were, went up level, over a track and found the right train. This station was more confusing than the others but once we understood it, it wasn’t so bad. Again, Japan tried to idiot proof the place….everything is based off colors and large print (my kinda people) so it really was me not paying attention.
High Tea at Osaka Castle
The staff was very kind. I learned how to apologize for being late on the way over, but they were so chill. The place wasn’t very busy either. They set us at a beautiful spot near the windows overlooking the castle. Elijah and I lounged on the couches while Nate and Julie took the chairs. The whole area and room was just beautiful and the castle was amazing. They started the tea off with mocktails, and the staff verified what Julie could and could not have since she has a citrus allergy. They were very attentive to her. Soon they brought out the savory for us… Their signal burger, tuna with Japanese-style balsamic jelly (created with the image of good old Japanese history) and triangle shaped takoyaki. (Octopus balls…no, triangles)
Very delicious! Very nice. The dessert course came and then the tea stand. It was so beautiful and everything was so well done that we didn’t even want to eat it and took several pictures. It is apparently the first anniversary of the tea so the menu matched it and was also matcha based.
The bottom level was the boats which had transparent jelly filled with edible flowers and strawberries, blueberries, and melons…representing treasure. The sails were made of salty rice paper, and the cookies were in the shape of the number “1” for the anniversary.
Level two had a round cookie that had a landscape garden using dried meringue and chocolate cherry blossom trees. There was also a matcha opera cake and matcha scones, that were awesome with butter and strawberry jam. The cup-shaped cookie was Uji matcha cookie dessert and filled with a sour berry-flavored fluff.
Top level were the cute little shogun, filled with a mango mousse and the little hats were made of sugar glass.
The dessert parfait came out and that was an experience. It was matcha ice cream, roasted green tea jelly, and shiratama. It was on more of that sugar glass and a cookie with the name of the lounge on it. It was explained that we needed to break the candy and pour the brown sugar sauce over it. Tried it before without the sauce and the flavor completely changed when the sauce was added. It had all kinds of weird flavors that we delicious but absolutely unusual. Nate finished his, the rest of Juli’s and Elijahs and still “wasn’t sure” about it.
It was so much. We were so fat and happy afterwards and decided we wanted to go and see the castle and walk the grounds. (And walk off tea)
To say the castle was outstanding is an understatement. The stones that were there were absolutely massive. We couldn’t even imagine how he put them there in modern times, let alone in ancient settings. We couldn’t determine when the original castle was first constructed as most of the signs just talked about the reconstruction in 1628. (I love reading signs) I gathered that there was a fire in 1843 when it was destroyed by fire once more and reconstructed again in 1868. Then, once more during WWII.
Such a nice day. The temperature was perfect, the grounds were lovely and there weren’t huge crowds of people. The ambiance of the castle grounds was just perfect…and kinda surreal. Just a lovely spring day walking castle grounds in Osaka, Japan!
We decided to brave Don Quixote again.
This one was even crazier than the first one with so many more people. So many levels. So much more stuff. Also far more expensive than the other one, simply because it was his touristy area. We went through to get our souvenirs, then left to take a breath outside near the riverfront. Juli was done for the day, so we locked her back to our apartment and stopped at the konbini that was underneath it to get some snacks. Next stop… sushi. We realized we had been in Japan for the whole week and hadn’t yet had any. Although Dotombori is probably not the place to do it, we found Kura Sushi, took a ticket and then went out to wander again. Once we returned, we waited a little longer before as our turned to be seated.
We had gone to conveyor belt sushi before
but this one was crazy. There was the regular sushi line where you find something you like and take it. Then, there was a fast track line where if you ordered something on the tablet, it would zoom to your table and stop, waiting for you to take it off. So you get the convenience of conveyor belt sushi, but don’t have to actually wait to get what you want. And it was also cool because instead of counting the plates and arranging by color at the end, you slide them into a little slot on the table where the machine keeps track of them for you. It also activates a little game – every five plates gets you an entry where your little anime character fights and if you when you get a gacha toy (think of those little quarter machines in the state where you get a ball with a toy in it)
We. Ate. A LOT. Our little anime character won his fight and Elijah got a new gacha (a pin to add to his lanyard) Between the 3 of us, we finished 32 plates. (Look, sushi is delicious) We told the tablet we were ready to leave and brought our ticket up to the front to check out.
She said the total in Japanese, but clearly I misunderstood her. Clearly my Japanese isn’t that good. She repeated it again in English, but I still stood with mouth agape. Finally, she pointed at the screen. Couldn’t believe my eyes.
4400 yen.
Total. That’s about $32ish US dollars. Total. For all three of us. For 32 plates. I’m not sure what the poor girl thought as my broken head walked away. And there’s no tipping in Japan. I can’t remember the last time my family of three went out to a restaurant for $32. Certainly never sushi. We’ll be going back for sure.
We had a little room for dessert. We kept seeing everyone walking around with glass strawberries (probably some tickity-tok thing) so we had to try it.
Definitely not what I was expecting. Very hard, had to really bite down to break the glass around the berry. Also, very very sweet. I’m glad we got one to share, it was just a bit much for me, but I appreciated the experience. Great day.
