KANSAI
OUR ENDING IN OSAKA
PREFECTURE
We finish off our tour of Kansai region on
one of Osaka’s busiest streets, Shinsaibashi
and Dotonburi. Buzzing from day till night,
the streets are a shopping arcade for fashion
lovers to splurge on clothes, and is just a
great place to pick up Japanese home-brand
cosmetics, souvenirs, and have local street
food on the go. For those who don’t enjoy
shopping, Dotonburi Street has many
gigantic, and flashy neon signboards that
are prefect for Instagram shots or to just
walk around.
Grab something to eat at Minokichi,
which is conveniently located near
Shinsaibashi for your fill of Osakan
delights in a Kaiseki Japanese cuisine
restaurant. Kaiseki is a traditional Japanese
multi-course haute cuisine that is
meticulously and beautifully prepared.
Minokichi’s kaiseki set meal begins with a
selection of appetisers and vegetables
before the meal ends with a serving of rice
and alcoholic drinks.
At the end of the meal, we say “Gochiso
sama deshita”, which means, “It was quite a
feast” and we share the same feelings for
Kansai. With its unique virtues, it is truly a
land of elegance that is filled with warmth,
graciousness and heartfelt welcome from its
people. A friendly, smiling face is the most
common sight here and the most commonly
heard words, “Arigatou gozaimsau!”Tourist Center (global.kinosaki-info.com) to
offer a variety of services, such as the
booking of day tours and tourist attractions.
While in Kinosaki, one must not miss
out on tasting Tajima beef. Tajima beef
originated from Japanese Black Cattle
from the Tajima region in Hyogo
Prefecture. It is said that the ancestor of
all Japanese Black Cattle are cattle from
Tajima and the origins of Kobe beef and
Matsuzaka beef are actually Tajima beef.
Dining Mikuni is a restaurant in Kinosaki
that is popular for its Tajima beef. The
restaurant purchases their beef directly
from Ueda Cattle Farm, which produces
champion cows. The main difference
between Japanese Black Cattle and Tajima
Cattle is the melting point of the fat. The
fat in Tajima beef melts at a lower
temperature of 12 ̊C, which results in the
coveted melt-in-the-mouth sensation
when eaten straight off the grill.
Elsewhere in Hyogo Prefecture, we head
to Himeji Castle, which is also known as
the ‘White Heron Castle’, as the
architecture resembles a heron taking
flight. After five-and-a-half years of
restoration work, this 400-year-old castle
has been revitalised. The magnificent
structure is renowned in Japan, and has
retained its original form since its
construction with its eight plastered keeps
and towers, and 74 other towers and gates.
From the outside, the castle looks like itonly has five floors but it actually has six,
excluding the basement. The castle was
designed to prevent enemy invasion in
mind. The shelters of the gates are made of
wood, such that in the event of an
invasion, the soldiers could knock down
the shelter easily to collapse them onto the
enemies or block off the entrance. New to
the Himeji Castle are some Augmented
Reality (AR) spots, where tourists can
download the ‘Himeji Castle Great
Discovery’ app through Apple’s App Store
or Google’s Play Store to view past images
of the castle to compare the old structure
with the restored one.
Another structure to visit in Hyogo
Prefecture is Engyoji Temple, a quiet
mountaintop temple founded by Buddhist
priest, Shoku about a thousand years ago
in 966AD. Shoku had received
enlightenment from the God of Wisdom
and Intellect, Monju, and was told that
whoever climbed this mountain would be
purified in both body and spirit. Soon after
he received this message, streams of
people started climbing Mount Shosha to
pray for divine favours, and faith in Mount
Shosha began to increase and prosper.
Today, Engyoji Temple is best known as
one of the best film locations for the movie,
‘The Last Samurai’ starring Tom Cruise.
Moving on from the spiritual experience
of Engyoji, we move onto another
experience of the ‘spirit’ kind with saketasting in Harima, a town in Kako District in
Hyogo Prefecture. Harima is the home of
Japanese sake and is the largest and most
productive district to grow ‘Yamada
Nishiki’, a short-grain variety of Japanese
rice that is famous for its use in brewing
high quality sake.
Nadagiku Shuzo Brewery is a family
business, which has been opened to the
public for the past 20 years. Nadagiku
Shuzo Brewery has preserved the old
sake-making factory layout as it has been
since the 1930s of the Showa Era.
Kawaishi-san is the CEO of Nadagiku
Shuzo Brewery who showed us the
process of brewing sake and explained the
differences between the old and new
sakaguras (sake-making rooms). The old
wooden sakaguras are preserved in the
premises of Nadagiku Brewery since its
foundation in the year of 43 in the Meiji
Era. Today, sake is made at Kinoegura,
which is made of reinforced concrete.
Besides selling various homebrewed sakes,
Nadagiku Shuzo Brewery also sells facial
toner water made of pure rice liquor,
which contains kojic acid. Kojic acid is
produced during the fermentation and has
been identified as the reason why sake
brewers’ hands are so soft and smooth.The ‘Glico’ running
man is a must-take
shot in Osaka’s
Dotonburi