Leaving Tokyo - Osaka

Kyoto has a bit of a small town feel although it has a population of almost 1.5 million. Osaka on the other hand has a much more big city feel at over 2.6 million people. However, the general tourist consensus is that there really isn't much to do in Osaka. Well, I was about to find out anyway.

Hilton is an impeccable business hotel located in the Umeda District. My only complaint is that I actually had to pay to use their business center. I understand charging for internet in rooms, but charging for printing and internet in the business center seems a bit much. Umeda is a sort of downtown type area that we didn't really have a chance to check out. We spent the first part of our day meeting up with Shiang Ping, orienting ourselves, and them finding some Okonomiyaki.

I got a recommendation from the information center for a place in a strip mall under the train tracks, but unfortunately the place was closed. We did luck out when Sarah took us to Okonomiyaki Sakura in the same strip mall. What did I order? Yaki-udon of course! It's just that everyone else was ordering okonomiyaki, I felt like I had to break from the norm. Plus I really wanted to eat it.

It was awesome. I also tried some of Sarah's deluxe okonomiyaki which includes the dubious combination of mochi and cheese. I think I might have tried mochi cheese before, but I have to admit that it's way better than I ever imagined. Imma eat it again.

The one must see in Osaka is Osaka Castle, so we didn't mess around and made that our first stop. Once we entered the grounds of the castle park we noticed the normal Japanese park activities of people doing whatever they want. There were people pseudo skiing down a hill on modified roller blades as well as a smaller group practicing these regressive skateboard type roller skates. More importantly, there were crazy trees.

I'm pretty sure that these trees don't grow like these naturally, but there were a ton of them. Grooming them has to take a long time and why do they look so weird? Getting to Osaka Castle actually required a bunch of stairs. It's built in a very strategic location and I imagine it was an extremely effective stronghold back in the day. I mean we had a fairly tough time making it in.

On the way we saw a whole bunch of old people with ridiculously expensive cameras all looking at something. So we went to check it out. I asked one of them what everyone was looking at, and we all felt a little foolish when we discovered they were just bird-watching.

Osaka Castle has been thoroughly modernized so that the interior is all concrete and houses a museum about it. The exhibits were pretty fascinating as they explained how Japan was unified by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and then subsequently controlled by Tokugawa Ieyasu. We were lost in the exhibits when we realized that it was already 3 PM and Shitennoji Temple closed at 4 PM. We split up with the girls who were going to go shopping in Umeda, bailed, navigated out of Osaka Castle, and got to Shitennoji Temple ten minutes before it closed.

We had purchased the Osaka Unlimited Pass, and entry was essentially a sunk cost, so we asked to be let inside for ten minutes. I'm glad we did because it was nice to have a temple all to ourselves. Well, in all honesty, Shitennoji was nice but underwhelming after a day in Kyoto.

On our way over to Shitennoji, it had started raining and we debated either going to Tennoji Park or to the Osaka Museum of History. As the temperature continued to drop and the rain increased, we decided to stay indoors as much as possible. Unfortunately, we ran into the all too familiar problem of the museum closing shortly and were denied entry.

Time was slipping by as we scanned our guidebooks for a place we could still use our free passes and decided to go for the Floating Garden Observatory. This place was literally out in the middle of nowhere. After walking through Osaka Station, we had to continue down the street in the rain, backtrack on the other side, and take a tunnel under a JR storage facility...

But we successfully got to the Umeda Sky Building and starting making our way up. Funny thing about the observatory is that the ticket booth is on the 39th floor and the building goes up maybe another five floors past that. So realistically, you can not pay for the observatory and just get the views from that floor. I wouldn't recommend that though as the Floating Garden Observatory was actually pretty cool.

I'm pretty sure it caters heavily towards couples as there are numerous couple chairs and you can rent out the space to host your wedding. I didn't get to sit in a couple chair, but I did obnoxiously float around them to get this view.

You can also take an elevator up to the rooftop. It was inevitably windy up there and since they don't allow the use of umbrellas we were forced to endure the rain. I'm surprised they kept it open as it was actually quite dangerous on the roof. The entire space is blacklit and little neon spots on the floor produce a fluorescent atmosphere. Here's what Osaka looks like when you turn the exposure up on your camera and then run in the rain.

This crazy activity compelled Wei to do the same thing and everyone looked on as we ran on a rooftop some 173 m up in the air with whipping winds and rain.

After evacuating the building, it turned out the hotel was not all that far away. We headed back to put on some layers and I checked where my night bus back would pick me up. Everyone else was staying another night. After a quick consult with Shiang Ping, we found out that if we didn't head towards Namba, all the shops in this shopping district would close. And so we headed south and were in the area within half an hour.

Namba is somewhat reminiscent of Shibuya with a largely younger crowd and plenty of shopping. Nothing other than restaurants were really that unique to Osaka and after a short walk down the Shinsaibashi Shopping Arcade, we decided to turn around and get some grub. Wei and Micah grabbed some crepes at a nearby crepe stand called Crepe Ojisan, then we headed down Dotonbori past the famous Kani Doraku and made the brilliant decision of eating kaiten sushi.

Sarah and Shiang Ping caught up with us and went hunting for a place we could get cheap drinks. We finished our dinner and found them waiting for a table at a 280 Yen restaurant. A 280 Yen restaurant is just like a 270 Yen restaurant just 10 Yen better. Good times. We had a couple drinks as the clock wound down to my night bus back home.

Last time I ever take the night bus. The seats are uncomfortable, but the thing that really kills me is that you get woken up every hour or two by the bus stopping and the bus driver turning on all the lights. It's horrible.

I definitely need to come back to the Kansai region. Wei and Micah went to Nara the next day and fed wild deer. There are a couple other towns to visit and although Himeji Castle is under construction right now, it's supposedly the most beautiful castle in Japan. Two days is way too short for Osaka + Kyoto.