OooOOOH...SAKA!!!
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2009
1
9
31
Trip End
Feb 28, 2010
Osaka, Kinki, Japan
Thursday, September 24, 2009
After a relaxing time we took the train toward Sannomiya again this time all the way to Osaka. Once there we had a lot of time until we could check in, so we decided to try to do stuff kind of, on the way. Luckily right near the Osaka JR station was Umeda Sky Tower, maybe my favorite spot in Osaka. It is an amazingly constructed futuristic 173m high set of towers connected at the top by what they call the "Floating Sky Garden." It is incredible in all ways, from the way it looks from the outside, to the sleek design of the inside, to the black lights at night and the beautiful gardens and parks surrounding it.
You enter Umeda through the east tower, then you cross across into the west tower on the 3rd floor ( don't ask me why??? ) then from there take this amazing glass elevator to the 35th floor. From the 35th floor you take an escalator through a glass tube to get to the 39th floor. You can go as far as the 39th floor for free and you still get a pretty awesome view and get to take the elevator and escalators, but to get to the 40th floor and the rooftop "floating sky garden" you have to pay 700 yen ( about 8 bucks ). Which isn't really that back if you think about it.
On the 40th floor is the main indoor observation deck, which is a really sleek and modern area with a cafe and interesting seating all the way around the 360 degree panoramic windows.
From there you can make your way to the roof for a really spectacular view.
Anyway, we spent quite a while there and ended up eating at the fancy restaurant there with an amazing view of the city.
After Umeda, we were getting pretty sick of our packs and decided we should find our hostel and see, if we can't check in, if we could just leave our bags so we could walk around more freely. Luckily for us our hostel allowed us to check-in early. The lady who greeted us was incredibly friendly and the hostel itself was very cool. I would highly recommend it to anyone staying in Osaka ( assuming you are ok with the whole hostel experience ).
After settling in and having a brief nap, we decided we'd check out this Mexican place Jess had read about in Shinsaibashi. Little did we know at the time, Shinsaibashi is one of the neatest and most popular locations in Osaka. Right at the top of the subway station was a major intersection surrounded by huge lighted billboards for major designer stores such as Channel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Cartier.
We found the Mexican restaurant with surprising ease and had a wonderful Mexican meal. It was really nice to have Mexican again and it was actual Mexican food too, the chef was even Mexican.
After some food we thought "why not check out this area?" and it turned out to be one of the coolest places and surprisingly few tourists. My guess is even though it is very interesting, there isn't really actually any attractions. It's really just a massive area filled with narrow streets, cool shops and funky bars and restaurants, but it was very enjoyable. A few of the major streets were lined with so many colourful signs and bright lights, it was overwhelming. The area around the canal was also very interesting.
I am afraid, I wasn't really in a picture taking mood that night, and wanted to just walk around and enjoy the atmosphere, so no pics! But I'm sure you can find pictures of it on google, if you're interested.
Once we had browsed ourselves silly, we headed back for some sleep after a very long day.
