Papajojo

Exploring Umeda: Late Story about HEP FIVE and Yodobashi

Posted on 18. Jul, 2009 by James in Restaurants, Shopping, Sightseeing

Finally i can post this story after waiting for one week. I went to Umeda on Saturday last week together with my wife and daughter. We didn’t spend long time there but we managed to visit some famous places and enjoyed the trip. Anyway, i think even one full day is not enough to explore the whole Umeda and places around it. So if you have a chance to come to Osaka, you better allocate more time if you want to explore it.

Well, basically Umeda is one of Osaka’s two main city centers. Umeda is the Kita (“North”) district of Osaka located around the large station complex that comprises Osaka and Umeda Stations while the other one is the Minami (“South”) district around Namba station. There are couple of famous places to visit at Umeda such as the Umeda Sky Building (a spectacular 173 meter tall skyscraper with Floating Garden Observatory on its roof), number of major deparment stores, HEP (Hankyu Entertainment Park), Yodobashi Camera Umeda, and Kitashinchi (place for restaurants, bars and night clubs).

We left the apartment around 10 am. From Kita Senri Station we went to Umeda directly by Hankyu train. It took about 1 hour, i don’t remember exactly. But one thing that i remember is when we arrived at the Umeda station it’s about lunch time. The first place we visited was the Hankyu Entertainment Park (HEP). It’s a large shopping and entertainment complex consisting of the HEP FIVE and HEP Navio buildings, east of the Hankyu department store. This place is known by the red giant Ferris wheel standing on the top of the building. However currently it’s temporary closed due to maintenance. Since it’s lunch time we stop by a restaurant named “Be OFF”, an all-you-can-eat restaurant serves various kind of foods from Asian to Western cuisines including salad, pasta, fried noodle and rice, soups, cake, ice cream, etc. It costs ￥1,258 on weekdays and ￥1,363 on weekend per person. Personally i would say the food is not really good in taste but it’s worth the price for an all-you-can-eat restaurant.

From here we continued exploring the department stores. It was a big summer sale so there were so many people looking for things offered by the stores with discounted price from 10% to 70%. It was so crowded and i couldn’t stand to stay there for long time. However my wife managed to buy a bag and necklace. We spent about 1 hour there and then left the HEP to another place.

The next place we visited was the Yodobashi Camera Umeda. It’s a gigantic branch of the Tokyo based electronics retailer stocks almost every current item by the major camera manufactures. But besides camera you can also find almost anything electronic such as audio/video, mobile phones and accessories, AC, Video Games, Music, Kids Toys, etc. And on the top floor you can find restaurants and fashion department store. Once again, it’s so big and i was so confused where to start and finally we just spent 1 hour looking at the audio/video stores and then we left without buying anything. Next time i probably better visit the place alone and spend from morning to evening.

Then we moved back to the station and then home. That’s all about my trip last week. We didn’t go to the Umeda Sky Building since we had been so tired and also it costs ￥700 per person to access the place. We have to safe the money for another trip. This weekend we’re going to have a barbecue gathering with Indonesian student community in Osaka. Story is coming soon, so stay tuned!

Tags: BeOff Restaurant, HEP FIVE, Hep Five Ferris Wheel, Osaka, Restaurants, Sight Seeing, Umeda, Umeda Sky Building, Yodobashi