My Christmas gift to my family was to plan a trip to Osaka and it was definitely a once in a lifetime kind of vacation that will be talked about forever I’m sure. Highlights of the trip were: Super Nintendo World, my son’s first real roller coaster experience, and getting to see a whale shark up close! Stay tuned for photos and more detail.

Unlike most people, who would take the shinkansen (bullet train), we drove from where we live west of Hiroshima over to Osaka. The tolls were cheaper than shin tickets and the drive isn’t too long – about 5 to 6 hours. The toll roads here in Japan are infinitely better than the highways back in the states, you get what you pay for here – nice smooth sailing between major cities. And all along the route there are nice rest stops. I mean that. They are bougie in comparison.Â

Often times, traveling in the states you pop off the highway into little towns where there’s a gas station and maybe some fast food. Or you stop at a rest stop that’s just toilets and vending machines, maybe a little “welcome center” if you’re lucky. But in JP you have a similar rest stop situation – right alongside the tollway – but every one will have a little convenience store, well kept bathrooms, and nice nature scenery (usually). And that’s the minimum.

Every few stops along your route you’ll have the big stops. These will still have a convenience store, with tons of gifts to take home, but it will also have various little restaurants and some food stalls that sell all the usual – ramen, yakitori, takoyaki, etc. The bathrooms will still be as sparkling clean as all the others but the bigger stops will also have nice showers to use. And they’ll have a full service gas station – complete with attendants who will do the refueling for you.Â

On both the drive to and from, we stopped a few times at rest stops to stretch, pee, and grab drinks and snacks. It definitely makes driving anywhere in this country an enjoyable experience to have these very convenient, clean, and safe stops along the way.Â

I make it a habit to not stay in hotels here unless there’s a good reason – like the hotel has something special to offer. Instead we stay in airbnb type situations (though I use Agoda usually). When I went to Beppu earlier last year, I made sure to stay in one of the places with an onsen. I ended up renting a house with it’s own indoor/outdoor onsen tub – complete with onsen water. When we stay overnight in Hiroshima, we usually stay in an apartment. But for the trip to Osaka, we stayed in one of the industrial neighborhoods in a pretty standard Japanese house.Â

Our house consisted of the usual entry way – where you take off your shoes and step into the house proper, a small kitchen/dining room, a small living room with TV, and a small bathroom on the bottom floor. Upstairs was a split room with futons for sleeping.Â

Now, usually I love futons and sleeping right on the tatami mats. But man oh man, these futons were in desperate need of replacing. I ended up taking an extra comforter and stuffing it with a bunch of small pillows to make some extra cushion for my body. Needless to say I didn’t sleep much the first night there, but oh well. It is what it is.Â

Now, if you’ve ever heard me talk about Japanese houses, you’ll know by now that my favorite thing is the bathroom. What you see here is a pretty standard Japanese shower room. Right outside that door, to the left, is a big sink unit plus a washing machine. To the left of that is another seperate tiny room for the toilet.Â

“What’s so cool about that?” you might ask. When the whole room is a shower, it’s usually bigger. In addition, the entire room gets warm. You fill the tub, which heats up the room in the process. Then the fully enclosed shower is nice and toasty. You can sit on the stool and shower, getting yourself clean and conserving water, before soaking in the bath.

And yes. I mean soaking. This tub in the picture made me feel like a lil kid in a deep kitchen sink, but when I sat down in it the water was all the way up to my neck! Try doing that with a standard American tub, ain’t gonne happen bub! And because you’re clean when you enter the tub, you can simply cover it to keep it hot for the next family member to us (further conserving water and energy). Just don’t pee in the tub alright? Kids go last for this reason ha!

Our first day in Osaka was spent checking out the amazing aquarium. The Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan was the largest aquarium in the world when it opened, but has since been shown up by a few others – like the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium and Georgia Aquarium.Â

The main attraction is the Pacific Ocean tank which holds 5,400 cubic metres (190,699 cu ft) of water. Inside are several varieties of fish, scalloped hammer head sharks (another favorite of mine), HUGE stingrays, and of course not one but TWO whale sharks.Â

The aquarium is set up in such a way that you take an escalator to the top and then spiral your way back down to the main floor. The top floor has some adorable otters and a few tanks before you descend and get your first view of the main tank. As you continue spiraling down you get other exhibits around the outter edges to explore but you never lose sight of the Pacific Ocean tank.Â

In the other tanks you’ll get to see California sea lions, Largha seals, penguins, puffer fish, dolphins, puffins, and sunfish. In addition of course, to the usual aquarium fare – like octupi, shrimp, lobsters, and fish of all shapes and sizes and colors. And what would an aquarium be without a dark room full of jellyfish?

And so we arrive at the crowning jewel of our trip – Universal Studios Japan. Let me just preface this with a reminder that I am an American. I’ve been to Disneyworld, Disneyland, and several Busch Gardens, Six Flags, and Sea Worlds in the states. I also know that Japan is pretty much the size of California and space is limited. So I went in with proper expectations okay?

But it feels SO SMALL! It’s a little over half a mile from one end to the other, so getting between places inside is super fast. Tickets to get into the park itself aren’t too bad, about $60 per adult on low traffic days $70 on higher traffics ones. HOWEVER, in order to enter the two special areas – Super Nintendo World and Hogwarts – you have to buy special timed-entry tickets.

These special tickets cost an additional $73 – $120 per person depending on which rides you get included in the ticket. Our ticket included express acces to the Yoshi ride in Super Nintendo World, the Spiderman 4D ride, Minions Mayhem, and JAWS. We didn’t end up doing the JAWS ride cause nobody in our family really cared about that, but we enjoyed being able to skip the lines and get faster access to the other three rides.Â

Since our tickets included a fast pass to ride Yoshi’s Adventure, we were able to enter Super Nintendo World at a designated time. If you don’t have a ticket, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be allowed into the area – even just to walk around and look at it. The only exception is if the park is super empty.Â

The reason for this is, you guessed it, it’s small. And it gets crowded very quickly. I believe our time for the area was 9:20am. By the time we got into the area and through our few minutes on the adorable Yoshi’s Adventure – where you ride a Yoshi and hit buttons corresponding the the Yoshi Eggs you find along the way – the other two attractions in the area were packed. And by packed, I mean it was already a 120 minute wait to get on the Mario Kart ride.Â

TWO HOURS?! Yep. Two hours. As you might guess, with me having two children under 10, we most definitely did not wait in a two hour line to experience whatever the Mario Kart ride is.Â

The other attraction in this area is a meet and greet with various characters. They have multiple photo stations, one with Peach, one with Luigi and Mario, and right outside the entrance are a seasonal themed photo station (Luigi and Mario Snowmen when we went), and a station where you can look like you’re popping up from the tunnel.Â

Naturally these all have actual photographers stationed there to take good photos of you and your family. And then you can order the photo printed right there with a cute paper frame and usually a QR code for downloading the digital image (we did this at the aquarium to get a good momento for our family trip).Â

Before we were able to even go see Nintendo World, my husband and son went on the Flying Dinosaur in the Jurassic Park section. Not gonna lie, I’m kind of jealous that I didn’t get to go. The line for this particular ride is pretty fast because of how fast the ride goes. By the time they’re done loading everyone up they’re ready to launch and the other ‘car’ gets to pull in and load in a new collection of riders.Â

The ride itself is unlike other coasters I’ve seen. I’ve been on top track coasters, like Batman at Six Flags Arlington, but this ride goes the extra step by pulling the riders up so they are parrallel to the track. The front of the car is a pterydactyl, so that is what the ride simulates. My son was just barely tall enough to ride and he’s usually a bit timid but he made it through the line and into the seat. When the ride pulled him up into place the adrenaline hit and he was super excited to go.Â

Little sister and I were hanging out below to watch the roller coaster go multiple times before the boys made it on. The Jurassic Park area is what you would expect, lots of foliage to make it jungle like and signs everywhere warning of dinosaurs. There was also a cute show going on later in the day that had big dinos walking around as well as an adorable baby tricerotops animatronic.Â

The indoor area I’m sure is a very welcome attraction in the summer and winter alike. It has a cute little boat ride for the small kiddos, plus several different play areas for children to just let loose and have some fun.Â

Considering the majority of big rides in the park end up with massive lines, most of the few roller coasters being 1-2 hour waits, this place is a great place to let the kids just have fun for a while. I can’t imagine being caught in super long lines with kids who just want to have fun – we certainly avoided it at all costs!

The other two rides we got to enjoy with our express passes were 4D attractions. The Minion Mayhem one funnels you through various staging areas where you wait in line but get to go through different theme rooms and watch videos that give you the ride’s story. You’re going to get tranformed into a minion and go through minion training. All the while you get to see the girls talk about a present they’ve got for Gru.Â

Eventually you get to the ride itself which loads you into a two row, 4 person per row, cart. The cart goes up into what is effectively a giant IMAX theater and moves around as you watch the screen. It was super cute and because it was a bit more open it was less nausea inducing.Â

The Spiderman ride however, goes on a track and has a lot of movement. Usually I’m the one with the sensitive brain-tummy combo, but it was actually my husband who got a lil nausea and headache from it. I really enjoyed the ride to be honest, there were parts in it where you had water splashed at you, fire shot off in the distance where you got a big whoosh of hot air – and of course the cart twisting and turning and shaking us all over the place had the kiddos hooting and laughing.Â

If I were to go back to Osaka there’s a couple places I wish we had time to go to. One was a park there that is all lit up during the holidays, it has great food and is just a really nice night out to see lots of lights. Another is the Tennoji Zoo. Pretty self explanatory, nice walking and lots of cool animals to look at.Â

The unique place I wanted to go but didn’t have time for is the Kansai Cycle Sports Center. This place is a big park with all sorts of different cycles. It’s got a big path to ride normal bicycles on, but then also has all sorts of funky bikes like quadcycles, a cycle ‘roller coaster’ that you pedal on the track for, little sled bikes, a train you pedal, and most notably these little parachute rides you pedal your way up and then parachute back down to earth in.Â

Maybe we’ll make a last minute trip there one day before we leave Japan. Who knows.