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View of Osaka from Osaka Castle
Osaka History Museum
As a group we split up more in Osaka than we did in Kyoto. Personally I felt I was missing some history so I wanted to add more museums into my itinerary. (And anyone who has gone to a museum with me knows that is mostly a solo endeavor. I go through museums SLOWLY.)
I started with the Osaka Museum of History and enjoyed learning about the area. However, Japanese history is difficult to jump into! There are so many people, and places, and the names are both different to western names but also similar to each other (not to mention families using the same name) so I don't remember who built what, but I did learn some things. Near the museum and the current Osaka Castle, is a site which is the location of the former Naniwa Palace. In the past, there were actually two palaces, one built on the foundations of the other. They used different methods of anchoring the pillars into the ground, and at one point the latter palace was even completely disassembled and moved to another city.
The palace location was also a fairly recent archeological discovery, and I liked that the museum emphasized and explained the process of archaeology. There was a kids play area that had a number of activities like microscopes, a digging area, and other interactive elements to help kids understand the process of archaeology. My favourite part was the puzzles. They had some regular puzzles (but made of acrylic to be long lasting) and they had these amazing 3D magnetic puzzles that were made to resemble the remains of a smashed pot. You placed the pieces onto a magnetic form that was attached to the table but could spin freely. I enjoy puzzles, but doing a 3D puzzle on a curved surface with rounded edges on each piece was hard. A lot of fun though!
(top left) The museum is on the upper floors, and you have a view of the site of the former palace (top right) The 3D puzzle with some pieces still missing (bottom left) At the end of the kids area was this display. People can leave their comments about the museum. Each month has a different colour, and the comments get stacked to show the passage of time like layers of soil.
Osaka Castle
After the Osaka History Museum I was out of time for the day, so I went to Osaka Castle the next morning with Sammi and Igor. If I thought there were a lot of names at the history museum, that was nothing compared to the castle. One entire floor is dedicated to analyzing a very large and very old folding screen painting depincting an impressive battle. I had absolutely no clue who was attacking or defending or fleeing or chasing or leading which clan. In one corner of the floor is a video that I watched for about 20 minutes that covered many of the vignettes that are depicted within the larger painting and I don't think I saw the entire thing there was so much detail.
However, I loved learning about the physical construction of the castle. Clans were assigned portions of the outer walls and there was a video about how, when cleaning the stones, they found marks in the faces of the stones that match the symbols representing the various clans. Some of the marked stones are scattered throughout an area, as a reminder of who made that section, while other are grouped closely to define the border between sections created by different clans. Upon leaving the castle I found a couple good vantage points and found some of the marks on my own!
(left) Some of the stones I found with the carved symbols (the left ones have circles, the right has a a couple square shapes) (above) This is just a small part of the folding screen. Clan leaders are labeled and there was a display with short biographies to the side.
Nara Park
While Marlena explored the Osaka Museum, the rest of us headed out to Nara. The main attraction that we were interested in was the Deer Park. Around 1000 deer roam free around Nara, mainly isolated in a few parks. The deer are pretty friendly and VERY food motivated. There are crackers around that you can buy, and if you pull them out near the deer, they will start harassing you for food. Either way, really cool to see so many deer just wandering around with people!
At one point we were crossing the street between two of the park areas, and there was actually a deer waiting with us to cross! Once the crossing light turned green, some people started crossing and other people just waited around the see what the deer would do. Eventually it crossed (well past the green light), and only almost got hit by a truck.
We also took some time to wander around the city nearby, and go to one of the temples in the forest. Of course, I took the opportunity to also take out my drone.
Osaka Aquarium + Boat Ride
It was the start of a new day, and trying to figure out what to do. Osaka has a pretty large aquarium, so we ended up there. And it was indeed large! Multiple floors of huge tanks, and a huge variety of sea creatures. At one point there was an "acclimation tank" where they had seals getting used to a new timezone. Didn't get to grab a picture of that, but they were pretty much just chilling in a pool with some artificial lights.
At the same place where you purchase the Aquarium tickets, they also had Boat Ride tickets around the bay. We decided "why not" and got tickets for that too! It was on a pirate-ship looking boat, and it was nice to just be out on the water and enjoy the fresh air. It was around 40 minutes on the water. Marlena missed out on the aquarium, but joined us on the boat ride 😀
Our boat for the ride around the bay
View of the aquarium from our boat
Lunch + Dotonbori
After the aquarium, it was time for lunch. Well, it was 3pm, so a mix between lunch and supper. Sammi had found this good Okonomiyaki place for us to try. It would be my first time having it. I believe Marlena talked about it in a previous post, but it's basically a savoury pancake with veggies and meat incorporated into the batter.
This place was super small, enough room for maybe 8 people. It was run by this little old lasdy, and it was delicious!
After Lunch, we headed off to Dotonbori, a small entertainment street next to a river. For our time there, we split up and just wandered around a bit, nothing too special. Many low tour boats were going down the river, and at one point one of them started playing a Trumpet? It was a bit strange lol. We eventually came across a strawberry dessert stand where we got some tasty Daifuku and candied strawberries!
Osaka TeamLab Botanical Garden
TeamLab is an international art collective that puts on large interactive displays. In Osaka, they had set up a display in a botanical garden downtown. So once night fell, we headed over there. They started off with a video saying to be careful and then let us loose to wander the garden.
It started off with a walk through some lit-up trees with relaxing music playing. Then the path branched off a into a number of different areas. Here's a summary in no particular order.
There were some inflated eggs spread out throughout one of the areas. They would slowly change colors when left alone. However, you could go up and push one. When you did that, it would change to a solid color and "spread" that color to the nearby orbs. This would continue to spread until all the orbs were the same color. They came in a range of sizes too.
A laser-light display through some trees, with geometric lines.
A caligraphy wall where brush-strokes would appear with accompanying brush-stroke sounds.
A collection of inflatable tubes. Once again they reacted to people walking by and the wind blowing through through the area. The stronger the wind, the more vigorously they moved.
(Above) Same fire-lamps in the pond, just pretty in general. (Below) A video compilation.
A wall of patterns that would "react" to nearby movement. If there's a bug or bird that flies by, it'll trigger a streak across the wall and then patterns will start from that. The same is supposed to happen from loud sounds. To us, it seemed mostly random since there weren't many visible birds around.
Umeda Sky Building
On our last half-day in Osaka, a few us decided to go to the Umeda Sky Building nearby. It's an architecturally interesting building. It is pretty much two individual buildings connected only at the top by a sky observatory. It's around 40 stories high.
Inside, there was a small restaurant, as well as a display of various "tall" things around the world. It also described a bit about the origin of the building and how it was built. The central platform that makes up the observatory was built on the ground and raised 40 stories up to its final position.
We were able to get some pretty nice views of Osaka from here!
Interestingly, there was a series of three bridges that we saw. The middle bridge was completely covered, and we couldn't find it on Google Maps. Wonder what's going on there 🤔
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