Day 25: Sad Animals and Big Castles

Trip Start Aug 14, 2010

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Japan Osaka, Kinki, Japan
Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Jumping on the use of my unlimited pass, I headed down to one of the viewing towers on the south side of Osaka. Not being in my original plan, the only reason I went was because it was included in the pass and near one of the temples I wanted to visit. Similar to that, the nearby zoo was also a hitting point just because it was free.

The views from the tower were pretty good, as I always love seeing cities from above. The zoo, well, was completely lacking. Animals in tiny cages and poor conditions repulsed me, and I left quickly.

Getting lost to the temple was not so fun, and after seeing dozens of temples in Japan, I lost my feeling for seeing anymore. Catching another train, I headed up to the rebuilt Osaka castle for a brief tour of the inner museum.

The setup for osaka castle was much like Nagoya castle where the inside of the structure after rebuilding was made into a museum complete with aircon and an elevator. While the sites were decent it was nothing new to me.

Originally planning on going to the floating botanical gardens for sunset, the onset of clouds turned me away and I spent the rest of the evening at the hostel and the doutonbori district with more cheap takoyaki!