Osaka: Castle & Shinsekai

I woke up pretty full from our indulgences last night. We were up at 7:30ish again to get over to Osaka castle before the crowds made it an inaccessible swamp. With the subway system now sorted in my head we easily got over there (JRNamba to Shin-Imamiya to Osakajokoen). The castle parklands begin just outside the station, and there was a conveniently placed coffee shop for a breakfast pastry and a coffee (to wake me up so I’m bearable to be around). The grounds are very large so it took us 20 minutes or so of wandering before arriving at the moat. We passed a convention centre with loads of people queueing for something, as all the signs are in Japanese (obviously) we have no idea what but when we passed back later on a lot of people had food and were milling around. No idea what was going on. We gradually made our way over the first moat and past the gates to find people brushing the leaves into a huge shape of the Olympic Rings and ‘2020’ (the olympics are in Japan this year) which was pretty amazing. She also had an owl tied up to her bicycle, slightly odd, and she had to keep shouting for people to get away from it as they went over for a look. 

Beyond this oddity was the castle itself. It’s pretty amazing, a massive square building with a few oversailing rooves that get smaller as they rise until a much smaller capping roof. My OCD was piqued when viewing the building from the corner the rooves aren’t actually aligned. Quite disturbing. Also disturbing are the gilded tigers at the top of the structure, they look deranged. By the time we’d made it here the place was already pretty busy so we joined a queue for a ticket, left the queue literally at the machine because Amelia thought we could get a discount, realised we couldn’t get the discount, so went to the back of the queue again. Fortunately it went pretty quickly so not too much time wasted. Once inside (eventually) you’re directed to the top level (the 8th floor) which is an observation deck under the topmost roof. The views across the city are brilliant, if not somewhat ruined by the metal mesh placed in front to stop people dropping/throwing/jumping off. In terms of a skyline the city is pretty nondescript, with a few towers all over the place but nothing that really stands out as iconic. But I love a view from high up nonetheless so I was happy. It was very busy up there so moving around was slightly difficult, getting a selfie in was a logistical nightmare. Although we managed. 

From the 7th to 1st floor (ground) there is a museum depicting the life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi who was born a farmer but became the most powerful man in the country to unify all of Japan into one nation. He also created the class system of samurai and farmers (creating divisions to exert control over a populace, still being done by ‘politicians’ today), persecuted all Christians and attempted to conquer all of China (ravaging Korea in the process) before eventually dying in 1598 (not before murdering every potential threat to his only sons succession to the seat of power he had created). He built the castle in 1583 on the former site of the Honganji Temple. Unfortunately for him his line was killed off by 1615 and the castle destroyed, rebuilt in 1620 then struck by lightning and burnt down in 1665. It was faithfully restored in 1931 and further modernised in 1997. All very interesting, with a lot of the suits of armour they wore on display, which are pretty amazing and most just look like they would hinder a warrior rather than protect them. One was entirely covered in black bear skin which I would imagine would burn pretty easily, another with 2 foot long horns and one that looked like a massive ku klux klan hat. It was a bit of an overload of information on a topic neither of us knew anything about so quite a lot went over our heads, but it was done in a pretty good, succinct way so we could understand enough to stay engaged. 

From here we had a brief look around a patch of the grounds we hadn’t seen before and headed back off to the station to have a look around Shinsekai, an area rich in modern history. It was built before WWI and then neglected, basically to the present day. The south, where we were, was modelled on Coney Island in New York (the theme park island), and the north on Paris. It had an imitation Eiffel Tower in the centre, which doesn’t really resemble the Eiffel Tower now because the original fell into disrepair and was later replaced with the current iteration. I found out later on that it is one of the poorest, and most crime ridden areas in the entire country, although crime levels are so ridiculously low here it’s probably actually better than most of the UK. This melting pot has created a vibrant neighbourhood of restaurants, shops and entertainment (a bit x rated in parts). The main street up to the Eiffel Tower has loads of massive neon signs and was absolutely rammed with people when we were there. An excellent photo spot.

Our first stop was lunch, which I loved as I tried Okonomiyaki, or ‘Japanese pizza’ for the first time. However Amelia’s streak of bad lunches continued with some fried chicken that didn’t seem to be cooked enough, although that may have just been how the batter is cooked here. Unsure. After wandering around taking in the life of the area we headed back to the hotel (20 minute walk) to pick up our bags ready to get the bullet train to Hiroshima.

After a couple of busy subway trains with our big backpacks (not ideal) we got to the Shinkansen train at Shin-Osaka at 4ish. We didn’t reserve seats as our train was arriving so soon, but this didn’t matter as cars 1-3 of 16 were unreserved seats, and the entire platform has signs showing which carriage number is where, with arrows where to queue. The train system in Japan is light years ahead of the UK, it’s just so good, and hasn’t been even a minute late yet. We managed to get a couple of seats on the train and settled in for a delightfully mundane journey. If you stare out of the window too long you feel a bit motion sick as it’s going so ridiculously fast, but it was soon dark so this was a non-issue. I can’t speak more highly of that train, it’s a great mode of transport. Would have taken over 4 and a half hour to drive but instead was just an hour and a half. 

We arrived in the dark at Hiroshima and eventually worked out a way of getting to our next hostel, via a streetcar (tram). After we were eventually persuaded that we had to pay when we got off the tram rather than when we first got on we arrived at the Peace Garden where the memorials and museum is for the Hiroshima bombings in World War II. We walked though this in the dark to get to our hostel, making sure not to look at anything too closely as we’d be back here tomorrow for a proper look. The hostel itself is fine, not as flashy as nine hours in Osaka but has everything we need and even provides a free breakfast. 

Dinner tonight was at a lovely looking restaurant with some delightful Spanish guitar playing. It did however have a weird menu with lots of tapas-like things without it actually being tapas. I found it confusing and was stumped for a while before going for some pasta (the only ‘main’ looking dishes on the menu). Both looking forward , and not looking forward to learning more about Hiroshima tomorrow.