Journey to the West: Osaka

Pics from Osaka are here.

Osaka was also awesome, although we ended up not seeing everything we would have liked to. On arriving we wandered around a bit before finding our hotel but eventually were able to check in and drop off our bags and stuff. We took a break then, splitting up to nap/otherwise recharge, as we'd left the capsule hotel in Kyoto at around 7:45 that morning and had done a LOT since then. When I woke up my roommate was nowhere to be found, so Michael and I went off on our own to explore and eat dinner. On top of a building near our hotel was a giant ferris wheel called the Hep-5, so we went off to that to go around once and see the city from way up high at night (it was only around 6pm or so, but it was very dark out already). It was really cool despite the fact that I'm slightly terrified of heights. (I don't have any pictures from up there, unfortunately, because I wasn't sure how well my phone's camera would work in the dark...)

After that we had dinner in a little chain restaurant and headed back to the hotel; my phone had died and we were still pretty tired, so we spent the rest of the night relaxing and catching up on internet business and sleep. (We also charted a course for the following day.)

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel's buffet and checked our bags into the hotel's back room so we didn't have to drag them around all day. We had been given passes by the group leaders that were good for entry into some museums/whatnot as well as fora limeted number of subway lines. The first place we went was Osaka Castle, which is huge and giant and other adjectives that imply largeness as well as many adjectives that mean beautiful. :D The grounds of the castle are simply enormous, as is the moat. We walked through the grounds for a while before going into the castle itself, which is now a museum dedicated to the castle's history, especially to Hideyoshi, the Tokugawa-era shogun who built the castle. (The castle that currently stands there is a replica; however, Hideyoshi's original castle was burnt to the ground centuries ago.)

The museum has you start on the eighth floor, which is basically an observation deck. We could see the ferris wheel by our hotel from it! The rest of the floors had various displays and replicas and artifacts and videos and infographics, etc., that talked about different historical events and people tied to the castle's history. After buying a bunch of souvenirs in the gift shop there, we had some takoyaki from a stand for lunch and headed off to our next destination.

From here we had a series of failures - the next place we intended to go was a Buddhist temple that apparently had a shrine built of human bones. However, the temple was really far from the stop we had to get off at, and after walking for a ways we decided to move on to bigger and better things. (We later learned that it was one altar made of cremated ashes, which is nowhere NEAR as cool. Never trust hearsay, kids.) Unfortunately this put us behind schedule, so we had to rush the rest of our adventures.

The next place we went was Namba, where there is an underground shopping center. We split up and wandered for a set amount of time before returning and getting back on the train to try and get in one more thing before we had to meet up with the group again. (I bought an awesome hat there! :D)

The final place we wanted to go was a place called the Floating Gardens, which is a giant garden that forms the top bar of a skyscraper built to look like a doorframe-type shape. Unfortunately, time was too short and it was too far away, so we only saw it from a distance...

After that, we went back to the hotel and picked up our suitcases and met up with the rest of the group. (I also popped into a Family Mart and bought some FMA folders, random but whatever. :D) We headed to the main Osaka station where we boarded the shinkansen and headed back to Tokyo. A few hours later we arrived at Shinagawa station and hopped off to go our separate ways. All in all the trip was a great experience despite a few swings-and-misses as far as sightseeing was concerned, and because of the shinkansen I actually got my homework done too! Crazy, I know right.



The Journey to the West ends here - that's all folks. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.