Best Spots in Umeda and Umeda Station, Osaka’s Shopping Center

Osaka has two main downtown areas. In the north is Umeda. This is Osaka’s transportation hub and is easily accessed by one of its seven different train stations. Umeda has a plethora of shopping malls, great restaurants, and entertainment spots for you to enjoy. Today we will introduce the most popular spots around the northern Umeda area.

Ride the Umegle Bus

Osaka’s Umegle is a lime-green bus that runs around the Umeda area, making it easy to explore. So we’ll introduce great spots along every bus stop. Umeda is huge and it’s exhausting to try and see everything by foot.
This bus has been running since April 2013.  There are 12 stops along its 30-minute circuit around Umeda. Each ride costs 100 yen, or you can buy a one-day pass for 200 yen. It runs from 8:05-19:15 on weekdays, and 10:20-18:35 on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. So don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with Umeda, because you can’t get lost with this super convenient bus.

■UMEGLE-BUS

JR Osaka Station

Umegle’s first bus stop is located on the Northeast side of the JR Osaka Station.

Osaka Station city

The original JR Osaka Station was constructed during the Meiji Era to establish a train route from Osaka and Kobe. It was located near Dojima, on the west side of present station building. After major renovations, JR Osaka was redeveloped as Osaka Station City in 2011 and offers countless shopping, dining, and entertainment options. As the name suggests, the Osaka Station City building itself is like a whole microcosm.
South of Osaka Station is the Osaka Terminal Building, also called the South Gate Building. It encompasses the 17-floor Daimaru Umeda with two underground floors, as well as Hotel Granvia Osaka with its 716 hotel rooms.
The North Gate Building across from the station platforms on North side comprises two buildings, LUCUA and LUCUA1100 with more than 300 fashion, variety stores, and restaurants.
The Yawaragi no Niwa, or Healing Garden, is a spacious terrace on the 10th floor of the North Gate Building featuring a Japanese rock garden, while the Wind Plaza, or Kaze no Hiroba, sits on the 11th floor and offers spectacular city views and plenty of seating. These are great spots to escape the hubbub of the station and look out over the city below.
The Tokino Hiroba connects the North and South Station Buildings and is another open area where events are often held.
There is a one-hour guided tour around Osaka Station City. The guide will introduce the latest must-see spots, great photo spots, and more. In addition, there are tours available for different languages including Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. For more information about these tours, check the information desk on the station’s 3rd floor.

■Osaka Station City

Yodobashi Camera Multimedia Umeda

This is Yodobashi Camera Multimedia Umeda. This building can satisfy all your tech needs as it sells a variety of home appliances, cameras, smart phones, laptops, daily necessities, clothes and even has restaurants.

■Yodobashi Camera Multimedia Umeda

GRAND FRONT EAST

After getting on the Umegle Bus north of Osaka Statino, the first stop will be at Grand Font East.
Grand Front is a large commercial complex on the North side of Umeda Station that opened in 2013. It is comprised of more than 250 shops, bars, restaurants, and even a hotel.

■GRAND FRONT OSAKA

Hankyu Osaka Umeda Station

The next stop will be a Hankyu Osaka Umeda Station. East of JR Osaka Station, there are many commercial buildings such as Hankyu Department Store which are owned by Hankyu Electric Railway. Back in the Meiji Era, Hankyu Electric Railway was known as Minoh Arima Electric Railway, connecting the Umeda area to Takarazuka, Hyogo in the north and Ishibashi to Minoh. It has expanded since then to also include lines running to nearby Kyoto. The founder is businessman Ichizo Kobayashi, who also is the owner of Takarazuka Theatre.

Hankyu Department Store (Hankyu Umeda main store)

It is said Hankyu offers the greatest of product appeal in Kansai for fashion, cosmetics and beauty. This department store is popular for woman of all generations as a source of woman’s fashion. There are 15 floors including its basement floor where many people come to shop for freshly prepared food and sweets every day. The main store of Hankyu Umeda is located in the lower level of the South side of Umeda Hankyu Building.

■Hankyu Department Store

HEP FIVE

East of Hankyu Umeda, you can find Hep Five. It offers many stores targeting women in their teens and twenties.
On the 1st floor, there is a great hanging sculpture of red whales as parent and child designed by Tatsuya Ishi from Komekome Club.
Hep Five also features a giant red ferris wheel. It has 52 cars which can seat four people and it takes about 15 minutes to go around once and  enjoy the view of Umeda, especially at night.

■HEP FIVE

Chayamachi

The next stops on the Umegle tour brings us to Chayamachi and Tsurunocho, the east side of Hankyu Osaka Umeda Station. Here you will find many chic cafes where young people like to hang out, as well as some major fashion brands. It is said that in the Meiji era there were three big tea stores in Chayamachi and Tsurunocho called Tsurunochaya, Haginochaya and Kurumanochaya, and there was a great view of rapeseed fields. Well, the view is quite different now with all of the modern shops and young people walking around.
Hotel Hankyu InternationalMBS head office

Umeda LOFT
The Chayamachi area houses Hotel Hankyu International, Umeda Arts Theatre, MBS head office, Umeda LOFT, NU-Chayamachi and Yanmar head office, in addition to endless fashion and restaurants.

Maruzen & Junkudo Umeda Store

I recommend you visit the Maruzen book store in Chaska Chayamachi, which opened in 2010. It was designed by Tadao Ando and is a commercial complex combined with housing and a hotel. From the building’s basement floor to the 7th floor is Maruzen & Junkudo Umeda, which is a huge book store about 6,800 square meters wide, and holds about 2 million books. As such, they claim they are the biggest book store in the country. It’s easy to find books because floors are separated by subject.

■Maruzen & Junkudo Umeda Store

Nishi-Umeda

Next let’s check out the South side of JR Osaka Station. Get off at the bus stop called Nishi-Umeda. This area is located southwest of Osaka Station and the closest station is Subway Yotsubashi Line Nishi-Umeda Station. It is easily connected to the Hanshin Electric Railway’s Hanshin Department Store in the east.

Osaka Garden City

Hanshin Department Store

Herbis Plaza Ent includes Hanshin Department Store, Hilton Hotel, Hilton Plaza West and East, and Osaka Shiki Theatre, while Herbis Plaza Osaka features Ritz Carlton, and Breeze Tower has Sankei Hall, a big commercial complex including restaurants, hotels and amusement facilities. The subway station is directly connected to an underpass so that it’s easy to access from Umeda Station.

■Osaka Garden City

Chocolatier Palet D’or

Chocolatier Palet D’or is on the 4th floor at Herbis Plaza Ent and opened as the first Osaka chocolatier specialty shop by chocolatier Shusuke Saegusa in 2004.
There are many chocolates in the display window. They have also ones prepared as gifts.
I recommend the chocolate set that includes three kinds of chocolates and a drink. Its sweetness is elegant, yet a bit bitter. It makes you feel relaxed every time you put them into your mouth.
The gateau set is really good with rich chocolate cake.
The glass window from which you can see JR Osaka Station lends the restaurant a spacious feeling.

■CHOCOLATIER PALET D’OR

JR Kitashinchi Station

The next stop will be JR Kitashinchi Station. Kitashinchi is Umeda’s main entertainment district south of Umeda Station.
Kitashinchi is an expensive restaurant area that may be compared to Ginza in Tokyo. There are more than 3,000 restaurants and offer a wide variety of expensive clubs, lounges, bars, snack bars, and small restaurant, and it is featured in the lyrics of Enka.

Le Sucre-Coeur

Visiting Kitashinchi at night is good, but there are many stores where people line up for their popular goods during the day. Le Sucre-Coeur is a major bakery in Kansai and it has been featured as the top bakery on Tabelog, a site many Japanese check for recommendations.
The original shop was in Suita City in Osaka, but was established in the Shindai Building in Kitashinchi in 2016.
Bread at this store is used for Michelin restaurants, so baguettes and croissants are really good. I recommend you try them even though you have to stand in line.

■Le SUCRE-COEUR

Umeda Shinmichi

The last stop on our tour is Umeda Shinmichi.
This area is located southeast of JR Osaka Station. This covered shotengai, or shopping street is called Ohatsu Tenjin Dori shopping street, and many people come to shop or drink at night.

Tsuyu-no-Tenjinja (Ohatsutenjin)

Sharing its name with the shopping street, Tsuyu-no-Tenjinja  is located at the street’s southern entrance. It is said that Monzaemon Chikamatsu wrote a story of a murder suicide at the temple in 1703 as a Japanese puppet show, Sonezaki Shinju, and it was named Ohatsutenjin for that story’s heroine, Ohatsu. This shrine gets daily visitors from the shopping street, as well as office workers who pray to the guardian angel of the Osaka Umeda area.

■Tsuyu-no-Tenjinja (Ohatsutenjin)

Summary

This concludes our Umegle tour around Umeda, though there are countless more places I would like to show you. You can find new places every time you visit. Many people come and go through this area every day, it is full of love from Osaka people.