Osaka – Day 2

After sleeping off the jet-lag, we took of around 9:30 AM for our second day in Osaka. We didn’t really have a plan, but we walked to Osaka station.

Arriving here, we first went to a shopping mall, but actually, it was a lot more than that. Several stores were transformed into “Lab’s” where companies and universitites can show and demo prototypes and new technologies, like a mirror where you can try on clothes without undressing, the dresses are projected onto your image, robots which can help lift sick people out of bed, and a new way of seeing 3D images without needing special glasses are just some of the examples of what we’ve seen. Also some brands like Panasonic and Mercedes have their latest models and technologies on show here.

After this, we took a look at the city from a bird’s perspective. At the Umeda sky observatory you can look at the city from a 173m height. Although it was rainy, we still had a nice view on the whole city.

In Osaka station we grabbed some noodles for lunch before going to Osaka castle. The rain was getting heavier, so we were happy that we could go inside the castle.

Osaka castle has been destroyed several times but each time they rebuilt it. The last time they even included an elevator for visitors needing a wheelchair. The history of the castle and the Samurai that built it and lived in it is portrayed very clearly with enough English so that even we can learn some things here.

Our last stop of the day was the Namba area with Dotombori and Shinsaibashi. First we walked through parts of Shinsaibashi, this is a huge shopping street where you can also find a lot of western brands and also some video game arcades. For dinner we went to Dotombori, this street is known for it’s restaurants and neon advertisements. W found a sushi bar here with a happy hour, 130 ¥ per plate of 1 or 2 pieces of sushi. Wonderful deal.

Then it was around 8:30 PM and time to go back to the hotel, the restaurants and shops were far from closing time, but we still had to pack for our transfer to Koya-san.

On the photo page we added some extra pictures.