Osaka

Osaka is Japan's third-largest city, a merchant port on Osaka Bay in the Kansai region of western Japan. Centuries as the country's trading hub gave it a friendly, unbuttoned personality and an identity built on food; people across Japan still call Osaka the nation's kitchen.

Dotonbori is the postcard: neon signs and a giant mechanical crab reflected in the canal while takoyaki griddles sizzle below. Osaka Castle rises from a broad moated park, rebuilt but commanding, with a museum inside the keep. In Shinsekai, an older Osaka survives around the Tsutenkaku tower, where kushikatsu skewers come with a no-double-dipping rule.

Give Osaka a couple of nights and come hungry; okonomiyaki and street snacks justify the trip on their own. Spring fills the castle park with cherry blossom picnics, and Universal Studios Japan absorbs a family day in the bay area. Fast trains put Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, and Himeji within easy day-trip range.