160513 Doubutsuen-mae

so.. we were supposed to go kyoto today but mr k settled in so late the previous day we ended up going to a nearby district instead, called doubutsuen-mae (literally front of zoo). not that we were going to the zoo.
we had our breakfast at osaka dome, where there's a supermarket at the basement and you can just buy all the goodies to eat at the free tables. there's also an oven to heat things up.

we walked in the wrong direction after exiting the station and took a good while to get back to where we were before realising it was actually just in front of us. the tower was blocked by the big pachinko mall but you could actually see it if you take a few more steps back =_=

gotta love all these big colorful shop fronts.

look at the portion they are selling...

i made mr k sit next to it to reference the size. the pudding is as big as the face...

here's the tower we see in the distance.

the tower is supposed to look better at night but we came too early

and just a street down there's an alley with lots of food... and the trending lover's lock spread.

there's a baduk club too whoo

after looking around we settled at the place with the longest queue. this place is supposed to be famous for their deep-fried sticks.

so you just pick on the ingredients you want, and they deep fry it for you. then you dip it into the sauce next to it (only once). 

when we left it was nearing night!

and then we headed to namba again to find foodies.. heard there was a lot of famous stuff we missed out on the first day so we revisited the streets.

first up, famous custard! the skin is so crispy!!! as mr k says, it usually has a queue but i guess we were lucky today.

then we have the famous cheese cake! fresh from the oven. it was going 'boing-boing' when it came out, like a wobbling pudding. we ate it at home, and it was so soft and spongy. you can actually eat the whole cake yourself as it's not very 'thick'

look at the queue...

we then went for our official dinner - how can we not have sushi in japan!

had the fixed set at about 8-9k yen. i'm always amazed at how big the topping is that you don't see the rice.

some additional ones to fill mr k's tummy.

we tried to locate this bra shop i had my eyes on and after walking a few rounds, failed to find it so we returned home for dragon blaze. T_T

7th august
oh my gooood i have no idea how i'm gonna update this zoo thingy. went to the ueno doubutsuen on sunday with atsu (coworker from ikea) and i took so darn many animals with their name tags that i'm sort of confused now. oh well i'll try my best.
before that, here's my 2nd muffin stuffed with scrambled eggs and croquette.

i forgot to take the zoo sign but oh well. the entrance is 600yen.
some thai-looking pagoda at the entrance

yeah i think you should know what some of the animals are so there's no need to explain. but i could input their japanese names too (if i know...)
elephant (zou) - i think it was being cleaned.

monkey (saru)



house of the saru ahhah

polar


seal - the mother and baby! so cute


penguins


lots of cranes (tsuru)







i think this crane is awesome




black bear (kuma)



it's standing!




i have no idea what i take sometimes





ooh! a huge hamster!


tapir



the kid's zoo~

we got to touch all sorts of cute furry creatures
looks like the one popo reared


rabbits (usagi)


white mice

horsie with plaits! (uma)

an incubator

cock-a-doodle-doo

goats, lambs, sheeps running free



it seems to like atsu


a shepherd?

we were also allowed to feed them!


some random


huge iguana

human panda?

human tiger~

pink cranes



the little creatures section















i loooove this kitty











what awfully thin legs





the night creatures section


cute wolves

very very cute rabbit-kangaroo-like creature that hops pretty fast around


















and out into the sunshine again


hippo (kaba)


it's humongous

rhinoceros (sai)



giraffe (kirin)


okapi?


here's the reptiles section (and atsu thinks snakes are cute...)

i saw star reptiles like boa constrictor from harry potter and anaconda hahah












colourful and poisonous frogs




turtles are cute



whoo??? turtle (kame) or rock?







there's hardly any space to move... poor thing














and we're out again





owl!!




didn't see any pandas cos tha last one lingling or something died... but here's a huge one anyway

and then the lion/tigers!



looks damn fierce




some birds and monkeys







it was already getting dark and starting to drizzle around 5pm+. so we hurried to the exit and saw some people carrying matsuri floats!


don't think they are going to hold the procession in such an impending weather...
then there's the puppeteer violinist guy i used to see at ikebukuro as well performing here


we then tried to find a cafe to rest but starbucks was all full so we settled for dinner at watamin. when i tried to withdraw my money i realised i had forgotten my password and entered 3 times the wrong password. got my card locked. so suay. atsu tried to call the bank for me but there's really not much we can do since banks are not opened on weekends. so i used my visa to pay for watamin and got cash from atsu instead. it was hilarious in a way though. haha. anyway, here's the food we ate. (feels like we ate more than doma-doma where there was 4 persons... wow)
cucumber wasabi salad appetizer

potato salad

mochi thingy again! i love them.

yakiniku/tori. so fattening...

fried chicken skins... ewwww

ochatsuke (rice with tea), better than lei-cha

mochi cheese! NICE

watamin salad i think

it was still raining by the time we finished around 8pm... so we went to sing for an hour at a karaoke (it's like 600+ for a person for an hour with free flow of drink... yikes). luckily the rain stopped then.
look damn chui though

can't believe after days of not sleeping regularly i could still have energy for a whole day out. wow. meanwhile, stella and jiayi had fun at disneysea.