My Vacation in Osaka - Part 2, Osaka Castles and Shrines, and the Aquarium

After my wonderful day in Osaka, I decided to head on over to the Umeda Sky Building. From the circular roof on the 39th floor you can look out over Osaka. I made my way over to Umeda Station, wandered around in several directions, and finally found the Sky building. It is two towers connecting by the upper 3 floors. These pics might get a little fuzzy, since I'm not particularly good with holding a camera steady for a long exposure shot. Oh well.

Here's the Umeda Sky Building from the plaza in between the towers. There were quite a few kites flying in the plaza, which looked particularly cool lit up at night.

After a few escalators, an elevator, and a few more escalators, I found myself on the roof. I had missed sunset by a few hours, but the sky was wonderfully clear and it was a full moon.

The Umeda Sky Building is particularly nice for dates. They have a fence where couples can put a lock, symbolizing how their love will last forever, or something like that. There's also a couple's couch where the floor will light up to show the strength of their love. This is what the floor looks like when no one is sitting there.

They had some UV lights around the roof, which made my fingertips glow.

And we're back down in the plaza beneath the building. The hole in the roof is what the walkway surrounds, and those two lines going through the hole are the escalators up to and down from the roof.

After the Umeda Sky Building, I met up with another teacher and we went out around the Tennoji area. Somehow we wound up about 3 kilometers away in Namba by the end of the night. We weren't particularly familiar with the city, so it was inevitable that we would get lost. These are some of the interesting tidbits we found around the city. 

This is one of the craziest grocery stores I've ever seen.

Even the manhole covers are pretty!

They have Mountain Dew in Japan but it is NOT easy to find. It was better than Korean Mountain Dew, though.

The next morning I headed on out to see what there was in Osaka itself. I was not disappointed to find that I was a short tram ride away from Sumiyoshi-Taisha Shrine. It is one of Japan's oldest shrines, built in the 3rd century before the introduction of Buddhism to Japan. It is one of three types of shrines that contain purely Japanese architecture free of influence from the Asian mainland. It is also a shrine to the gods of sea travelers, students of military arts, and waka poetry. Needless to say, I had to go.

The tram wasn't too hard to find, since I remembered being almost run over by one on my first night when I was trying to find Dobutsuen-mae station. Once I found the tracks, I just followed them to a station. When I got there, I didn't see any ticket machines, but there was a sign that said 100 or 200 yen. I figured I would just do the same thing as the other people on the platform. They got on the train, so I did too. It turns out that you pay once you get off at your destination. I just dropped in 200 yen to avoid underpaying.

The entrance to Sumiyoshi-Taisha shrine is marked by the Taiko-Bashi bridge. It is a very nice bridge, and casts a beautiful reflection in the water.

The view from the bridge.

That rope rings a bell, which is a sort of aluminum sphere with hard seeds inside of it. It makes a very rattly ringing sound.

There were so many pigeons there, it felt like I was on the set of Birdemic 3.

Even more showed up once this kind old man began feeding them.

After my morning at Sumiyoshi-Taisha, I decided to head over to Osaka Castle. Luckily, I got on what I thought was the wrong tram, which brought me right to the subway line that went to Osaka Castle Station (not its actual name). Osaka Castle consists of a very deep and wide moat with the castle walls just across a bridge.

Imagine falling into that moat.

Here's the bridge. It's not very defendable, but it's been about 400 years since someone tried to forcibly take Osaka Castle.

Once you cross the bridge, you're not at the castle yet. You still have to cross another moat.

Nope, not at Osaka Castle yet.

Here's Osaka Castle! It's been turned into a museum about the Summer War between the Tokugawa and the Toyotomi Clans 400 years ago. You may recognize that from the picture of the banner a little earlier up.

That's one purdy castle.

Here you can see the first of MANY flights of stairs.

Here you can see Osaka Castle Park from the top of Osaka Castle.

Osaka Castle also featured a garden, but much smaller than the ones I saw in Nara.

Here's the other moat.

So I started my day off at a shrine, wound up on the right wrong subway to Osaka Castle. What next, you might be wondering? Well, did you know Osaka has an aquarium. They call it the Osaka Aquarium. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, they have a WHALE SHARK. 2,000 Yen  ($20.00) to see a whale shark? Yes, please, and arrigato.

The harbor.

The aquarium follows a circular path that starts on the upper floors and slowly winds down to the ground floor again. We start with the underwater tunnel that aquariums always have. That doesn't make them any less awesome.

The areas were divided into geographic regions. The first was the Japanese Rain Forest.

They have otters. This aquarium rules!

They also had a selection of capybaras, Spelling Bee style.

PANCH
Capybara.

CONEYBEAR
What?

PANCH
Your word is Capybara

CONEYBEAR
Is that a word?

PANCH
That’s a word, yes

CONEYBEAR
No way – what does it mean?

PANCH
“a tailless largely aquatic South American rodent often exceeding four feet in length”

CONEYBEAR
Awesome. What else can I ask?

PANCH
You’re allowed to ask for the word’s language of origin or to have the word used in a
sentence…

CONEYBEAR
Oh – can you use it in a sentence?

PANCH
Yes. “Don’t look now Pedro but I think that tailless, largely aquatic four-and a half foot
rodent swimming next to you may be a capybara.”

CONEYBEAR
Wow, that didn't help at all!PANCH
Are you ready to spell the word Mr. Coneybear?

CONEYBEAR
No, but it was fun to come here –
(to family in audience)
Hi guys – my whole family’s here which is really…
(trance suddenly takes him)
C-A-P-Y-B-A-R-A Capybara.

Lazy Capybara, get up so I can take pictures of you doing silly things!

Oh, as if otters weren't enough, they have penguins. A lot of penguins. Like, seriously, so many penguins.

In every group of penguins, there is one who just looks like the kind of guy that you don't want to mess with. This penguin will ruin your day if you cross him

Finally I found myself circling the giant central tank. Here's the whale shark!

No, thats a ray. The whale shark is next.

WHALE SHARK! See? I told you so!

Finally we came to the deep-sea bottom type creatures. These include jellyfish. They are strangely photogenic.

Who's ready for freakishly large crabs? No? Too bad! Here they are.

They also had a small display that showed you just how thick some of the glass at the aquarium is. Pretty darn thick, but not as thick as an A&W Root Beer! Anyone else remember those commercials? No? Just me?

You're welcome. Here's the glass.

And here's more whale shark!

If you're squeamish, look out. Here come the jellyfish!

"Draw me like one of your French girls" - Chelsea's comment on this pic. 

There's ALWAYS a "don't mess with me" penguin.

As I left the aquarium, I was able to see the plaza lit up with colorful fountains and the giant ferris wheel. On my way back to the subway I stopped into a restaurant for some sashimi and skewers. I don't know what specific skewers or sashimi it was, but it was delicious!

I was pretty tired after the aquarium, and I knew I would be up early the next morning, but I also wanted to spend some more time in downtown Osaka since it was my last night there. From the aquarium I headed over to Dotonbori, the main downtown strip along the canal. It was pretty awesome.

I didn't see many strange vending machines, but the normal ones were EVERYWHERE. This wonderful one was filled with beer and sake. A blue strip means it's cold sake. The red strip is for hot sake. Everything was about 300 yen or less , which is $3.00 and under.

I finally found some green tea kit kats. They are awesome!

Well, that's about it for Osaka. I checked out of Hotel Mikado on Sunday morning at 10:00, headed over to Shin-Imamiya Station, and hopped the Kintetsu Railroad back to Kansai Airport. From there, it was a short flight back to Incheon, no problems getting through customs, and boom, another few stamps in the passport. It's filling up pretty quickly. I got the AREX (airport express) train back to Seoul Station and made it down to Daegu via KTX just in time to see the last 5 minutes of Dr. Who at Buy the Book. 

So that was my first vacation. I'd say that Osaka is definitely worth a visit, but if I did it again, I would spend more time traveling to the outlying cities. Nara was fantastic and I've heard there are a lot of really cool things to see in the Kyoto and Kobe areas, which are about an hour or less away by train. If I get back to Japan, those will definitely be on the list!