OSAKA
Osaka is the second largest city in Japan with about 3 million people in the metropolitan area.It is a major economic center and the primary gateway to the Kansai region.
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This image of the railway cutting through the neon and steel of Osaka is from Naoya Hatakeyama, a japanese photographer and artist. I borrowed this photo because we didn't get anything that showed off the city itself nearly as well as this.
Japan is famous for its colorful shopping districts, and Osaka is a city with some prime examples. Den-den Town and Panasonic Square are packed with every type of electronics store you could imagine. Amerika-Mura - the Japanese take on Little Italy or Chinatown - has the hip and trendy clothing boutiques, wild shoe stores, and every must-have accessory for Osaka's teen-chic. Ebisu-bashi and Dotonbori, pictured below, are somewhat more generic shopping arcades with the typical mix of specialty shops, 100-yen stores, tako-yaki stands, and local restaurants - all advertised with the usual assortment of neon kanji, giant dancing crabs and blaring J-pop music.
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In the northeast quarter of the city is Osaka-jo, the castle originally constructed for the warlord Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the 16th century. This donjon is surrounded by the castle park, which includes two orchards, a japanese garden, a concert hall and a WWII peace museum. The castle itself is a modern reconstruction, made into a museum that depicts the life and times of Hideyoshi Toyotomi and his successors with maps, models and pseudo-holographic movies.
The view from the top is pretty good.
The castle grounds also host a number of temples.
Here Steve is standing next to one of the Koma-inu, the lion-dog guardians often seen outside of Buddhist temples.
One of the other main attractions in Osaka is the Kaiyukan aquarium. When you enter the aquarium, you ride up to the eighth floor and follow a spiralling ramp downwards, past tanks that are designed to showcase a spectacular variety of marine life from the Pacific Ring of Fire. The enormous central tank is home to a handful of gigantic manta rays and one whale shark, the star of the aquarium.
The aquarium was packed as we were walking through it. Every Japanese tourist was snapping digital pictures - but they all used their 2 megapixel camera phones. The only people besides us with an old fashioned digital camera were the grandmas. The dolphins and sea lions are especially difficult to catch on camera because they move so fast. The lone sea turtle and the bizarre ocean sunfish made easier targets.
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Once you have finished gaping at the giants you enter a darkened corridor on the ground floor full of exotic deep sea creatures like the giant spider crabs from the depths of the Japan Sea, or these luminous jellyfish.
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