Saturday 9 April 2016

Osaka Hotel Recommendation & Travel Tips

Hotel Brighton City Osaka Kitahama was found, as always, by searching for a hotel closest to the subway station. For a RM465 a night Superior Double room, it was a 20 sq meter room, large by Japanese standards. The room was well-maintained for a hotel built in 2008 with rather complete amenities. Just remember to bring your own shower cap if you need one.


Evidently a business hotel, there was a pretty large writing desk with a safety box, mini fridge, drink area and tv all tucked in the same area. Everything was well designed and seamless. We were also pleased that they provided a disinfectant spray which proved really useful after all the teppanyaki and yakiniku visits as well as a shoe horn that LC will forever be grateful for.


The panel by the bed side controls the lights, air-conditioning and the DND or 'please clean room' buttons. When it came to packing our luggage for home, we could place 2 opened large luggage bags side by side and still move around the room with ease.


The bathroom looked well maintained and was pretty large considering they could split the toilet and the bathing area. Unfortunately, we didn't have the chance to use the bath tub here. Water pressure was great and the heating was so very accurate that we wondered if the same system can be bought in Malaysia.

Our room at Hotel Brighton City Osaka Kitahama was basic but well done. Everything was up to our expectation for the price paid and I can't complain for such a good location - 1 minute away from Kitahama station with 2 convenience stores plus lots of food places. We'll probably stay here again if we're in Osaka.

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Trains in Osaka are not particularly hard to navigate, especially if you have a Suica card. You either purchase train tickets at the blue machine or reload the Suica card at the pink machines.

One particular map and guide we found useful during our trip was the Explorer Osaka guide.


It includes the train route map and various recommendations on what to do, where to go, what to buy and where to eat.

Click to zoom in!
It also has the major maps of Osaka. These maps of Namba, Dotonbori and Umeda are only 2 of the 4-5 maps contained in the guide. 

Click to zoom in!
It also points out all the point of interests and restaurant options for tourists. We found our way around using Google Maps and these manual maps. Be sure to pick one up at the train station or the hotel lobby. A 'Explore Kuromon' guide is also available for Kuromon Ichiba Market. That one is really useful, be sure to pick that up when you see it too.