This is the first of a two-part trip report from our cherry blossom trip to Japan in late March and early April 2026. Part 1 covers Nagoya and Osaka, along with the side trips we made out to Kobe, Arima Onsen and Minoh. Kyoto will follow in Part 2.
Prologue
When we got home from Osaka and Kyoto in 2025, we told ourselves that if we ever did another cherry blossom trip, we would go somewhere new. A year later we were back in Japan, and we had only partly kept that promise. Most of the cities were the same, but the way we got to them was not. We flew Asiana Airlines from Singapore to Incheon, connected onwards to Nagoya, and then carried on by train to Osaka and Kyoto.
Nagoya was the one city on the itinerary that neither of us had been to before. Osaka and Kyoto we had visited the year before and enjoyed a great deal, and we were curious to see whether they would feel any different the second time round. On a cherry blossom trip, a lot of that comes down to exactly when the trees open and how long they hold on, which is the one part of the planning you have no control over at all.
The timing worked out better than we could reasonably have planned for. The blossoms arrived early in 2026, and Nagoya was already at full bloom when we landed at the end of March. They held on through our days in Osaka and into the first few days of April. We had spent months watching the forecasts move around, so we felt rather lucky to arrive and find the trees at, or only just past, their best.
By the time we flew, Asiana Airlines had moved its Incheon operation over to Terminal 2 as its integration with Korean Air carried on. That gave us a slightly unusual arrangement, because we were flying with a Star Alliance airline and yet our Star Alliance Gold status got us into Korean Air’s Prestige Lounges instead.
I have already written up the flights and the lounges separately. There is a review of the Asiana Airlines A350-900 from Singapore to Incheon and one of the Asiana Airlines A330-300 from Incheon to Nagoya. We also visited both sides of the newly renovated lounge at Incheon, so there are separate reviews of the Korean Air Prestige Lounge East (Right) and the Korean Air Prestige Lounge East (Left). If you missed it, our trip from last year is written up as Tapestry of Pink.
This trip report starts after we landed in Japan.
One night in Nagoya
We did not have much time in Nagoya. Our train to Osaka was already booked for the following morning, which left us with one afternoon and one evening to work with and no room for anything overambitious. What we managed in that time was two very good meals and several hours around Nagoya Castle. We arrived knowing almost nothing about the city, and we left wishing we had given it another night.
Hitsumabushi at Inou ESCA Branch
After landing at Chubu Centrair International Airport, we took the Meitetsu line straight into the city. By the time we reached Nagoya Station, we were hungry enough that lunch had become considerably more pressing than sightseeing.
Nagoya is known for hitsumabushi, and we had already settled on where we wanted to try it. Hitsumabushi Inou has a branch inside ESCA, the underground shopping complex beside Nagoya Station, so we were able to eat there before doing anything else with our afternoon.
The meal arrives as grilled unagi over rice in a wooden tub, and you are meant to divide it into smaller portions and eat each one a different way. The first portion is taken as it comes, with nothing more than the eel and the rice. Wasabi, nori and the other condiments go into the second. For the last portion, hot dashi is poured over what is left of the rice to turn it into ochazuke.
Written down, that sounds like a great deal of instruction for one bowl of rice and eel. Once we started eating, the order made sense to us. The first portion was all about the sweet glaze and the charred edges of the unagi. The wasabi and the nori made the second taste much sharper. By the end, the dashi had softened the sauce and loosened the rice into something warmer and lighter, and that last portion was the one I enjoyed most, although I would happily have eaten the unagi any of the three ways.
Our two sets worked out to around ¥3,870 per person after an anniversary discount. That is not cheap compared with what we normally spend on lunch in Japan, but the eel was crisp around the edges and tender in the middle, and it is the dish the city is known for.
Nagoya Castle in full bloom
From Nagoya Station we took the subway across to Nagoya Castle, where the cherry trees were already at full bloom. Pale pink branches followed the castle walls and spread out across the grounds, with the white keep, the dark stone and the green roof sitting behind them. We had come to Japan hoping to catch exactly this, and it was still a surprise to find so much blossom on our very first afternoon.
The main tower was closed during our visit because of concerns over its age and how it would hold up in an earthquake. That meant we could not climb the keep, although the reconstructed Honmaru Palace was open and there was plenty to see across the wider grounds.
We moved slowly between the palace, the walls and the blossom-lined paths. Even though we only had the one afternoon in Nagoya, we did not feel any need to rush through it, and we ended up spending most of our time in the city inside the castle grounds.
By early evening, we had made our way round to the outer walls. Small groups of people were gathering beside the moat to watch the sunset, so we joined them. The sky turned orange behind the castle while the blossom faded into the evening light. We took far more photographs than we needed, and eventually we put our phones away and simply watched the light change.
Omakase dinner at Nukesaku
Dinner was at Nukesaku, where we had reserved two seats at the sushi counter. The omakase was ¥7,000 per person. I had gone in expecting a good and relatively affordable neighbourhood sushi meal, and it turned out to be a lot more considered than the price had led me to expect.
The chef added the wasabi and brushed on the soy himself before passing each course over to us, and he changed the amount from one nigiri to the next. Sitting right at the counter meant we could watch him do it.
The atmosphere was relaxed, and as the meal went on we ended up having a good chat with the chef about the years he had spent working in China. It was not a long or particularly formal omakase, and we did not want it to be. It was simply a very good dinner served at a pace that let us enjoy it, and it worked very well for our only night in Nagoya. If we go back to the city, Nukesaku is the first booking I would make.
Nagoya to Osaka on the Hinotori
The following morning we left Nagoya on the Kintetsu Hinotori limited express to Osaka-Namba. Our standard-car tickets were ¥4,990 per person, before a rather random ¥200 anniversary discount that appeared when we booked. A highway bus would have been cheaper and the Shinkansen would have been faster, but we felt the Hinotori suited this particular trip better. It was comfortable, it ran directly into Namba, and it saved us the extra transfer out of Shin-Osaka.
The journey did not feel like dead time between two cities. Outside the window, the towns gave way to low hills, and cherry trees kept appearing beside the tracks along the way. Some of them were gone before we could even get our phones out, so after a while we gave up trying to photograph every one and just looked out of the window instead.
Its biggest practical advantage became obvious as soon as we arrived right near our hotel at the Swissotel Nankai Osaka, because we stepped off at Osaka-Namba Station and were almost immediately beneath the Swissotel, which sits directly above the station.
Osaka in full bloom, a year on
We had been in Osaka during cherry blossom season the year before, so there was no novelty in going back to the same castle and walking down some of the same streets. The blossoms made the city feel different anyway. A tree that is barely opening one year may already be shedding its petals the next, and this time Osaka Castle was still close to peak, while the cooler hills around Minoh had a few late blossoms of their own.
Back to Osaka Castle
One of our first stops was Osaka Castle, where the Somei Yoshino trees around the grounds were at their best, or perhaps just a little beyond it. Some were still packed with pale pink flowers, and others had begun to thin out, with petals starting to gather on the ground below them. There was still more than enough blossom to frame the castle tower from almost every direction we approached it from.
The castle tower as it stands today is a reconstruction with a modern museum inside it. We think it is worth going up once for the view across the city, but we had come back mainly for the grounds. During sakura season, we would much rather walk around the walls and the moats than spend the time queuing for the interior.
A quieter afternoon at Shitennoji
After the crowds around Osaka Castle, Shitennoji felt a great deal calmer. It was founded in 593 and is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan. The buildings that stand there today have been rebuilt over the centuries, but the grounds still have a clear and orderly layout, with the five-storey pagoda, the temple halls and the garden all set apart from the city around them.
The cherry blossoms were still out when we visited, and there were far fewer people about, which meant we could walk around the pond and the temple buildings without constantly having to step out of someone else’s photograph.
Shitennoji was not the most spectacular sakura stop of the trip. We liked it partly because it was quieter, and partly because it did not feel as though we had come only to take the same photograph as everyone else.
Kobe beef, then a night in Arima Onsen
From Osaka we headed over to Kobe for lunch. That was the main purpose of the detour, and we think lunch is a perfectly reasonable basis for a day trip.
We chose Steakland Kobe, which is one of the more accessible teppanyaki restaurants in central Kobe. The format is straightforward. You take a seat at the counter, choose a lunch set, and then watch the chef cook the beef on the hot plate in front of you.
It is busy and it is not especially quiet, so this is not where we would go for a long and polished teppanyaki meal. What it did give us was a good Kobe beef lunch without the price or the formality of a more elaborate restaurant. The beef had the richness we were looking for, and watching it being cooked in front of us is still half the fun of it.
After lunch we continued on to Arima Onsen and checked into Hotel Hanakoyado, a small ryokan we had stayed at before.
Arima is easy to like even without cherry blossoms. The narrow streets, the older buildings and the hot spring baths make it feel far removed from Osaka, despite being close enough for a short overnight stay. This time round, the trees around the town were in bloom as well.
I have covered the ryokan, its private onsens and the access that guests receive to its sister property in our full Hotel Hanakoyado review, so I will not go over the stay again here.
Back to Osaka, and a hotel with a new name
After Arima Onsen we returned to Osaka and checked into Hotel Dans Le Coeur Osaka Umeda. That was its name when we stayed there. It has since been reflagged as HOTEL GEOMETIQ Osaka Umeda, part of the Ascend Collection under Choice Hotels, with the new identity launching in July 2026.
For us it was a comfortable base in Umeda for the rest of our Osaka days, and it put us close to the transport we needed for Minoh and Kadoma. We will cover the hotel separately rather than turn this trip report into another review.
Katsuoji and its daruma dolls
One of my favourite days in Osaka took place well outside the city centre.
Katsuoji sits in the hills above Minoh and is known for the daruma dolls placed all over its grounds. They sit on ledges, on steps and along walls, sometimes arranged in tidy rows and sometimes left in whatever small corner a previous visitor found for them. Once we started looking for them, they seemed to be everywhere.
We had not known about the stamp card before we arrived. Admission included a card with six empty sections, and stamping points were placed around the temple grounds, with each stamp adding another part of the picture. It sounded a little gimmicky to us when we first saw it, but by the second stop we had become surprisingly invested and were already looking out for the next one.
The card gave us a loose route through the temple without making the visit feel prescribed. We followed the hillside paths, moved through different parts of the complex, and paid more attention to corners we might otherwise have walked straight past. Completing the picture was satisfying in a very simple way.
From Katsuoji to Minoh Falls
From Katsuoji we took an Uber in the direction of Minoh Falls. The wooded slopes there were noticeably cooler than central Osaka, and a few cherry trees at the higher elevation were still holding on. We joined the valley trail and carried on towards the waterfall.
After reaching the falls, we took a taxi back through the town. The driver followed the windy roads down through the residential streets towards Minoh-Kayano. It was not a sightseeing route in any real sense, but we enjoyed watching the scenery change from forest to suburb through the car window, and by that point we had done enough walking for the day that we were quite happy to stay in the taxi.
Shopping at Costco Kadoma
That evening we made one more detour, this time out to Costco Kadoma. Costco in Japan has somehow become part of our Osaka routine. The warehouse format is completely familiar to us, but the products are not, and we end up wandering slowly through the aisles looking at Japanese packaging, local items, and the regional versions of things we already recognise from Costco elsewhere.
There is nothing traditionally Japanese about pushing an oversized Costco trolley around a warehouse after a day of temples and waterfalls. It is still what we did, and we would rather a trip report include the odd stops like this one than pretend that every day ended with a beautifully timed sunset.
Costco in Japan deserves an article of its own, so we will save the membership and shopping details for that.
Reflections
Nagoya had originally been little more than a convenient way into Japan before we continued on to Osaka. We gave it one night, and we expected it to be the shortest chapter of the trip. Months later, I still find myself thinking about the hitsumabushi, the sunset outside Nagoya Castle and that ¥7,000 omakase. We barely scratched the surface of the city, and what we did manage to fit into a single day is reason enough for us to go back.
Osaka was familiar, and yet it did not feel like a repeat of 2025. The blossoms were at a different stage, and we spent much more of our time outside the places we already knew well. By the time we had been to Kobe, Arima Onsen, Katsuoji, Minoh Falls and even Costco Kadoma, we had done enough differently that it no longer felt as though we were retracing the previous year’s trip.
From Osaka we continued on to Kyoto, which we will cover in Part 2.
