Nightlife
Osaka has countless possibilities when it comes to nightlife, and here more than anywhere else in Japan, all good nights out start with a great meal! For dinner, do as the locals do and choose one of the many ‘all you can eat and drink’ options. It might not sound like gourmet cuisine but for around 2500JPY you’ll be able to try a mix of whatever you fancy and start your evening with a bang! If dinner followed by bar hopping sounds like your kind of thing, make a beeline for the Umeda neighbourhood. But if you’re up to clubbing, Namba is the place to be; with countless nightclubs open all night, you can party the night away and then head for a 24 hour ramen joint on the way home like the locals do!
For a real local experience spend at least one night exploring Osaka’s izakaya. Izakaya are traditional drinking houses where locals gather after work to enjoy a few drinks and share tasty plates of gyoza and yakitori - the perfect dishes to accompany a beer. These bars vary between tiny joints with just five or six stools squeezed in to bigger establishments where tables spill outside into the streets. Don’t miss stopping by a tachinomiya too. These street front bars where customers stand as there are no chairs are synonymous with Japan’s nightlife, and you’ll find plenty of them in the tangle of tiny streets in Osaka, especially around train stations.