A visit to the Castle is an integral part of any Osaka private tour, and it’s fair to say this is the most iconic spot of great historical significance in Osaka. We’ll walk the expansive surrounding park as well, talking about history, architecture, and the overall significance of the property. The rebuilt castle interior is a post-war rebuild and is rather disappointing, so we recommend you give it a miss. Trust us on this one. We’ll spend about 75 minutes here.

Osaka’s Shintennoji is probably the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan. Over the centuries, fires and war have brought intermittent waves of destruction. But each time, a rebuilding has occurred to faithfully reconstruct the buildings and pagoda as they looked over the span of nearly fifteen centuries of history. Everything on the property has been placed there and looks that way for a reason, and as a visitor, the impact is invariably felt by all. Buddhism came to Osaka from India via China via Korea, so compared to the more mature Kyoto design, there are some noteworthy differences. We spend 45-75 minutes here, depending on if we can go in the garden.

Come check out Osaka’s tallest building (the caveat: it’s the tallest building in Japan, but not the tallest tower, which would be the Skytree in Tokyo). We won’t ascend to the top floor of this 300m building, instead only going high enough using the building’s glass elevators to afford a quick, easy, and free view from above. Next, we drop down to the underground levels for an instructive and mouth-watering walk through a high-end Japanese department store food hall. Here you can find prepared foods, both Western and Japanese sweets, and a large selection of raw meats and seafood that shoppers cook at home. We’ll plan for about 45 minutes here.

Fun for kids and adults alike awaits you in Shin-sekai’s boisterous, carnival-like atmosphere. Not visiting Shin-sekai while in Osaka would be to miss out on a truly classic part of the city. It was a very popular amusement park in the 1920s-1930s, but then hard times hit, followed by more good times, more hard times, and now the place is solidly in good times. Enjoy games, food, fashion (“fashion” as Osaka people see it, at least), and that unmistakable Osaka vibe. A visit to Shin-sekai will surely be memorable! We’ll spend about 30 minutes walking around here.

We can pick and choose from different spots in this neighborhood. The especially popular include the internationally-famous Kuromon Ichiba (a seafood open market with a ready-to-eat bent), but also funky back streets, the restaurant and kitchen supply district, and, finally, we’d be remiss to not show you around the Dotonbori area proper. We’ll spend around 1-1.5 hours here.