Natural Hot Spring Midosuji Hotel

Location, location, location

The staff English is not good as well.

Onsen

Bed too small

Our first trip to Osaka and we just got lucky with this hotel. It is in a relatively quiet side street in Namba, so you are right in the heart of a district that is typical of Osaka style - bold, lively and the total opposite of Kyoto. Getting there was easy. We arrived later than expected due to staying too long in Nagoya that afternoon, so got a taxi from hotel to get there a bit quicker. Taxi driver was not 100% sure of where hotel was (it is in a pedestrian only side street) but it is very close to the metro station, so we just got him to drop us there. Metro is easy to use BTW, we just got a taxi for speed. Loads of restaurants in the adjacent covered arcades, walking distance to Nippnbashi DenDen (Electric Town - better than Tokyo's Akihabara for my hifi geek other half), Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping Street for kitchen gear, Takashimaya department store and other places. Metro station nearby. A good base to visit Osaka and get a sense of crazy Osaka style. The hotel has a small onsen too, which was really nice to have access too - 3rd floor and 10th floor. 10th floor has a sauna too. Women's was 10th floor in morning and 3rd in evening when we were there. Staff were very helpful when we needed to send some of our shopping to Tokyo and we bought a large takkyubin box from the front desk. Will be back!

Hard to find anything that wasn't good. Hotel doesn't do breakfast but, with so many restaurants literally on the doorstep, you are spoiled for choice for eating out. Some restaurants get very busy, so you may need to wait for a table in that neighbourhood. Osaka seems to be a city that never sleeps, at least in this neighbourhood, but we didn't find it too noisy. Had to sleep with the window open as I couldn't figure out the air con controls (quite a new one) and room was a bit warm for me. If we had been staying longer, I would have asked reception for some help using the controller.