Osaka

 Well here we are, another better late than never post...

In October we spent seven days exploring Osaka and Nagano, our second trip to Japan in about the same number of years. We had a direct flight and arrived early evening in Osaka. After breezing through immigration, we hopped on the train taking us to JR Osaka Station where our hotel was conveniently located a couple hundred metres from the station. We stayed at the Osaka Station Autograph Collection in the JP Tower Osaka. The hotel is located right where the first Osaka Station which opened in 1874 once stood. With that history, this lovely hotel featured a subtle train station theme throughout. The hotel staff were amazingly friendly and helpful; same hospitality we experienced on our last trip. We had a beautiful corner room that overlooked the city and the train station. Thankfully it was well insulated and we didn't really hear the train noise. We were upgraded to one of the larger suites with a living room area adjacent to the sleeping area with a large bathroom with soaker tub and separate rain shower. The Japanese really like their Toto toilets and this room also featured one with automatic open/close feature and warmed seat. It was a fantastic place to base ourselves for the first five nights of our stay. The hotel had an amazing buffet breakfast which was included and helped us get a great start to each day. In the lobby, the hotel had a what I thought was a really cool clock. The hour and minute hands were moved by two people sweeping garbage in the position of the time. I thought it was the most clever clock I'd ever seen and was fascinated by it each time was walked by it. On our last evening, we finally found the hidden bar that we had read about. It is located right behind the actual bar, but the access is through a non-descript door in the hallway. 

The metro system was a short walk away from the hotel which helped as we toured different parts of the city. We explored a lot on foot as well, but the city is quite large that just exploring on foot is impossible. And the metro and rail system is so convenient and efficiently run that it made sense to use it especially since we still had our Suica cards from last time. 

On our first day in the city we visited the Namba Yasaka Shrine which features a ritualistic performance stage shaped as a lion's head. It's located not too far from Namba Parks, which isn't actually a park, but instead a shopping mall where we took refuge during a bit of an unexpected downpour. We made it to Denden town, which is Osaka's vibrant electric town famous for its anime and electronic games. A bit further out of town Z read about an autumn festival called the Hiraoka Autumn festival that we thought would be interesting to check out. We read a bit about it, but not much information can be found online which made it even more intriguing to go see. This is an annual event held by the Hiraoka Shrine in Higashi-Osaka. The festival has the streets lined with street vendors selling local street food or trinkets to games for the kids. The main thing to see though is the parade of taikodai (decorated drum floats). Some of these floats tower up to four metres tall and weigh up to two tons being carried through the city's streets by teams of mostly men who train all year around to carry these floats eventually up the rather steep hill leading to the shrine. Through the procession the crowds shout "Chosaja" while there are two people a basket at the top of the float directing those carrying the taikodai to the beat of the drum. This was an incredibly fascinating parade to watch yet at the same time a bit disturbing seeing the agony on the faces of those carrying the large carrying posts of the taikodai, basically on the back of their necks and upper shoulders. During the procession team members would tag each other out and replace carriers because it was just too much to stay put the entire way. The parade had a continuous flow of these taikodai, some carried by children on smaller ones training to move up to the adult taikodai one day. My back hurt after watching this festival, I couldn't even imagine how the carriers felt. But its a tradition and regardless of the pain they endure, one carrier enthusiastically offered to take our picture while the procession was on a bit of a break. 

The two day Amazing pass allowed us to explore many of Osaka's main tourist attractions and unlimited metro access. With this pass we saw the Umeda Sky building and in fact ended up being able to bypass the very long of people also with the Amazing pass because an attendant took us and a smaller group of other to the other entrance of the tower that is not typically used for tourists. That was pretty awesome because the wait in the regular line up was about an hour long and we arrived towards the end of the day and were afraid we'd missed our chance at getting in and seeing the panoramic views from the 40th floor. The building is two towers of the same height connected b a sky bridge. Originally conceived to be four interconnected towers in total, the last two towers were never built due to the economic bubble of the 1980s. The Osaka water clock was a neat find at the Umeda Station which displays the time using water. 

We spent some time at the Osaka Castle Museum, which we heard was a must see but get there early tourist destination. The castle was built in 1583 and is surrounded by moats to help defend the occupants back in the day. Today the castle is a museum with each floor depicting a different part of Japanese history. It is filled with stunning artifacts and intricate sculptures. The building is a stunning piece of architecture, a beautiful piece of history surrounded by modern city. The Osaka urban cruise gave us a very different vantage view of the city and many of the bridges that connect the city over the Tosabori River. We ended up on a second river cruise on the Dotonbori river. Dotonbori is a popular tourist spot and entertainment centre, filled with towering neon signs, including the famous Glico running man, clubs, bars, and restaurants. We walked the promenade taking in the sights and stopping to listen to the odd street entertainer. 

We got to ride two of the numerous ferris wheels situated throughout the city as well with our Amazing pass. These give you a completely stunning cityview from up high. One of these ferris wheels was the Tempozan Ferris wheel located just outside of Tempozan market, and is also right by the Osaka aquarium. which is one of the world's largest aquariums. The aquarium is so popular that you have to book a time slot for entry. While the aquarium displays marine life in 27 different tanks from all different regions of the world, one of the main attractions are the two whale sharks housed alongside various other sharks, and reef manta rays. We managed to fit in visits to all three attractions as well enjoy the hour long Santa Maria river cruise. 

Exploring the Shinsekai area took us to the Shinsekai market, a lively retro market known for its authentic local vibe with quirky shops selling more than just tourist souvenirs, vibrant food stalls, and restaurants. The market is located nearby the iconic Tsutekaku Tower which we first admired from afar as we walked towards this area. Having been up the Umeda Sky building we didn't feel the need to wait in the very long entrance line to go up this tower. Instead we walked off the main drag and found not only the Pringles store selling Pringles merchandise including some very interesting and uniquely flavoured Pringles like curry and grilled scallop with butter soy sauce, but we also found a very good Ramen restaurant that was more of a locals place than filled with tourists. We had a great lunch here and were surprised at how inexpensive it ended up being for the quanity and quality of the food. 

Shitennjoi temple is one of the oldest Buddist temples in Japan, founded in 593. The temple's buildings are very beautiful and have been well preserved over the years and have been reconstructed back to their 6th century design after several fires over the years. The outer temple grounds are free entry with the inner pebble covered courtyard requiring an entry fee. The fee is worth paying to see the five storey pagoda up close. The entire site is so peaceful and tranquil. 

Our last day in Osaka took us to Universal Studios. We weren't sure whether to make the trip and the weather looked questionable leading up to our last day, but we ended up deciding a bit last minute to buy tickets and the day ended up being sunny and very hot. We knew it was going to be crowded and that the new main attraction Nintendo World was going to be popular and hard to get in, so we did what thousands of other likeminded people did and got there super early before opening only to stand in line with said thousands of others waiting to get through security before being funnelled towards the actual park entrance gates to wait some more. We didn't end up buying tickets that would have given us entry to Nintendo World, but Z had read that after you entered the park you could try and book an entry time. All sounds great, until it didn't work right away. We had rushed into the park without really knowing the park map with a plan to stop in at Harry Potter Land but we ran right by it as we got caught up with the rushing crowd to who know where. Z kept trying to see if we could get an entry into Nintendo World, but was getting frustrated when it wasn't working and as we had to double back to Harry Potter Land. At some point while we explored HPL, Z figured out what was going wrong and managed to snag us an entry time...all was well in the world, or say I'll say Nintendo World again! We now knew how much time we had to explore everything before it was "Let's Go!" time. We managed to ride one of the rides in Nintendo World and decided that wiating in line for three hours for the other most popular ride wasn't quite up our alley particularly too because they didn't offer a single riders line which would typically get you on the ride faster. Oh well, it was a really cool place to see and we also got to actually see Mario and Luigi and Donkey Kong. The Minion Park was quite entertaining, I even tired to withdraw funds at the Bank of Evil but with no luck! By this time it was lunch time and so we enjoyed a Minion themed lunch before exploring the rest of the park and taking in a couple of the daily performances. Shrek was on hand, as were Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy decked out in Halloween costumes. It was a fun day and a really nice end to our short tour of Osaka. We managed to fit in a lot and we were exhausted at the end of each day, but it was well worth it as I think we got a good taste of Osaka before taking the train up to Kyoto for a couple of days.