Tuesday last week it rained for nine hours straight. I had two guests in town, a couple from Melbourne who had been excited about a long walk through Sumiyoshi Taisha and were now sitting in a hotel lobby looking miserable at 10am.
We had a great day anyway. That's the thing about Osaka in the rain — it's a different city, but it's not a worse one.
The Covered Shotengai
If you've read my piece on hidden Osaka spots, you've heard me talk about the covered shopping arcades. These become essential when it's raining. Tenjinbashisuji, north of the river, is 2.6 kilometres long. You can walk for an hour, stop in three coffee shops, eat lunch standing up at a shotengai oden counter, and never feel a drop.
The shorter, weirder option is Tengachaya shotengai in the south. Less polished, slightly darker, full of shops that look like they haven't changed since 1985 — which is most of why I love it. There's a takoyaki stand run by an old man (I've written about him before — bag of takoyaki, ¥300, twice as good as the tourist versions).
Kissaten Weather
I genuinely believe a Japanese coffee shop in the rain is one of the best places in the world. The light is good. The window steams up. The owner is reading the paper. There's a record playing.
My standing favourite is the one I describe in my morning kissaten post — but a wet afternoon is, if anything, even better than the morning visit. I usually order a hot coffee and a slice of thick toast and then read for an hour without checking my phone.
If you want a slightly fancier rainy-day kissaten, Marufuku Coffee near Sennichimae has been there since 1934 and has a serious dessert menu. The shiratama-zenzai (red bean soup with rice dumplings) is exactly what you want at 3pm in February.
One Museum Worth a Rainy Day
I'm not a museum person. I went to the Osaka National Museum of Art twice in my entire life before a guest dragged me there a third time and I changed my mind. It is good. It is also entirely underground and a 1-minute walk from Higobashi station, which means you can do it without an umbrella from the train. Tickets are around ¥1,200 and there's almost always a rotating special exhibition.
I would not put it on a sunny day. But on a wet one it's nearly perfect.
Bathhouses
If you've never been to a Japanese sento or onsen, a rainy afternoon is the right time. Osaka has dozens. Solaniwa Onsen, near Bentencho, is the big touristy one — about ¥2,800 with a yukata rental, modeled after an Edo-period town inside. It's slightly theme-park but it is genuinely fun, especially when the weather is bad and the place isn't full.
If you want a smaller, real-neighborhood sento — under ¥600, no English signage, run by a family — message me and I'll send you to one near where you're staying. Don't try to find these on Google Maps. The reviews are misleading and the photos almost always wrong.
Drinking, but Earlier
Rainy days are the days I start drinking at 4pm without feeling weird about it. Most of the standing bars I wrote about in my Kyobashi tachinomi post open by 3 or 4. Walking into one at that hour, dripping a little, ordering a hot sake, watching the rain through the open shutter — this is one of the small pleasures of being in this country.
What I Did With My Melbourne Guests
For the record: a long, slow morning in a kissaten in Tanimachi. A walk through Tenjinbashisuji shotengai. Lunch at a small kushikatsu place. The art museum at 3. Sento at 5. Standing bar at 7. Ramen at 9.
They left at the end of the day saying it had been their favourite day of the whole trip, which surprised both of us. Sometimes the weather is doing you a favour and you don't know it yet.
If you want a rainy-day Osaka itinerary built around what's actually near your hotel, tell me where you're staying and I'll send a route. I do this often. Half the days I work end up being rainy anyway.