Osaka-Jo aka Osaka Castle

With the ground covers an approximate 60,000 square meters (roughly about 2 square kilometers) it's one of the widest covered areas for a historic structure in Osaka. Welcome to Osaka-Jo or greatly known as the Osaka Castle.

Getting there was not easy as I have to take the JR West Osaka Loop Line and stopped at the Osakajokoen station and another long 30-40 minutes walk just to reach to the main structure of the castle itself! It's a pretty good exercise especially after having a heavy breakfast earlier. The walk includes a few long streches of roads and a few flight of steps.

Built in 1583 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Osaka Castle was built on the former site of the Ishiyama Honganji Temple which was destroyed by Oda Nobunaga earlier. Hideyoshi was a Daimyo or known as the powerful territorial lord during his ruling period. Under his rule, he intends to put the castle as the center of a new, unified Japan. As the construction of the castle nearly completes in 1597, Hideyoshi passed away and passed on to his son Toyotomi Hideyori.

During Hideyori's ruling of Osakajo, the castle was sieged again and again by Tokugawa Ieyasu (Japan's first shogun). By 1615, the castle fell into Tokugawa's hands and that spells the end of the Toyotomi's line. Tokugawa's new heir, Tokugawa Hidetada reconstruct the castle again after much damage that has been done to the castle in the past war. However, the castle did not survive for long as it was struck by lightning in 1665 and the castle was burnt down.

The Osaka castle went through a few more decades of rebuild and torn due to war within its own countrymen, it was finally being restored by the Osaka's Government in the 1990's. To this day, the Castle is a famous and most visited landmark in Osaka City that sees so much history and what was rebuilt and restored was an Edo-era version of Osaka Castle.

The castle tower is surrounded by secondary citadels, gates, turrets, impressive stone walls and moats. The castle, it is made of a steel-framed reinforced concrete structure.

Inside the castle itself, is a museum. It costs 600Yen per entry/person and it opens from 9am until 5pm everyday. The Osaka Castle Museum has a large variety of historical materials and the screen displays which houses a collection of approximately 10,000 historical materials, including artifacts from this period as part of the main collection.

There's a total of 8 levels inside the castle. The 3rd and 4th floor where all the artifacts are located, no photography are allowed... which leaves me puzzling why it's preserved to the utmost secrecy? Perhaps it's just business oriented reasons or perhaps it's for political reasons. The miniature figures and the panoramic screens on the 5th floor show the scenes from the folding screen depicting the Summer War of Osaka.

The diorama on the 7th floor contains 19 scenes from the life of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, karakuri Taikoki, his image shown and moved around by high technology.

On the 8th floor, it is an observation deck where the view of the spacious Osaka Castle Park, modern high-rise buildings, the Osaka plain, and the mountains in the distance are visible from the top.

As the spring season is coming to an end, there's plenty of the locals hanging around the area to enjoy the weather and the sunshine. It's a good way for them to release their minds from the daily stress with plenty of fresh air that surrounds the castle's park area itself. As for myself, all I ever think was how long will it take for me to walk back to the train station yet again? It's just another agonizingly long walk back from I started.

Umeda, Osaka

Staying in Hilton Osaka that is located in the heart of Osaka city, it's one the happening areas around. The Kita (North) district, also known as Umeda, is one of Osaka's two main city centers. It is located around the large station complex that comprises Osaka and Umeda Stations. Kita's counterpart is Minami (South) around Namba Station. The Umeda district is well known for it's commercial and business district.

It is also best known as the city's main northern railway terminus where the Osaka Station is located here in this area. You will definitely see plenty of people heading in and out of the station area making it the largest station in Osaka itself.

Umeda is also known for shopping where three of the city's largest department stores (The Hanshin, Hankyu and Daimaru) is located here. Around the area where I stayed, there's plenty of restaurants, bars and offices surrounding the hotel. Looking for food around this area is considered easy.

From the last post where I had sushi, the area was called the Kitashinchi. It's an entertainment district where you will find hundreds of restaurants, bars and night clubs that suits from the young to the old. The area only comes to life in the evenings and during the day, it's practically a quiet area.

I did some walking around in the late evening (although the area that I've covered was little because of the cold weather), I've managed to see the vibrant city life of this area. No matter how late it is, the streets will never be empty with people hanging out at the local Starbucks or the karaoke bars. You will see hyped up teenagers to drunkards, pretty OL's to school girls and of course a mix of african blacks to american whites around the area as well.

I bought a few boxes of Pocky from the convenience store that's scattered around the area and also had a run up to an incident where it involves a drunk guy forcefully trying to feel his way up on his female counterpart, only to be dragged away by his fellow colleagues in the end. I wonder how would she feel meeting up with him again at work the following day?

Orankuya Sushi

Picking a place for dinner in Osaka is never been easier as everywhere you go, there's surely a place for us to eat. Mom's crave for sushi were very obvious as she's been requesting from dad to have sushi for dinner before we even got to Japan! After checking into the hotel, we quickly looked for a place around the area for dinner and we found it... a sushi place. The Orankuya Sushi restaurant. This sushi place only opens from 5pm until 2am. Pretty weird hours isn't it? Well, Japanese are well known for their late dinners because Japanese people works late. The store that we went to was located at Ottesuji. The address... if I get this right, it should be 1-chome, Kochi City, 3-13 追手筋.

If you happen to be in the area, do drop by into this Sushi restaurant. The fishes that they serve here is extremely fresh! Even my dad had both his thumbs up for its freshness... which is a rare ocassion from him to be praising something this simple.

As we sat ourselves down, we were given a Japanese menu (which is not the first time that we were being treated as Japanese). Dad has to go all out trying to talk to the manager for an English menu but what we got in the end was a cardboard menu that has all the sushi pictures taken in it. All we have to do is just point and order. On my first visit to Japan, I never had any Sushi in a Sushi bar. I don't even realize that Japan has such places to begin with until I've gone to this one.

The professional chef at work. Awesome skill with the knife on those fishes.

And here comes the Nigiri Sushi.

The very succulent meat of the Fatty Tuna (Toro Sushi).

These Fatty Tuna sushi costs 580 yen a piece. As for the salmon... 220 a piece.

The reason why fatty tuna is expensive is because the meat and the taste is completely different compared to any other fishes that I've ever tasted. The texture of the meat is softer hence making it an upper class of tuna meat that the fish can offer. If you are trying to imagine putting canned tuna fish into the mouth would taste the same, think again.

Tamago Sushi costs 130 a piece.

Even the Ikura Gunkan Makizushi looks extremely good!

A little serving of the Kappamaki.

The chefs has been extremely nice as they know that we were a bunch of visitors... so they've prepared for us a smaller version of sushi for presentation.

Overall, this little restaurant serves one the best sushi that I've tasted so far. My dad insists that we will be going to another one that was recommended by his secretary that is located in Tokyo's Ueno area which will be posted sometime soon. For the time being, this is still a breathtaking experience that I had in a sushi bar. Extremely AWESOME!!!

Returning To The Land Of The Sun

Ohayo Gozaimasu!!! Saying hello again after taking such a long break. I hope that my lack of time spent here didn't drive my fellow readers away. I was engulfed with heaps of work as of late. So much documentation to go after which drives my interest to write anything else to an all time low. Then... it was time. For me to go for a holiday. Tonnes of work wouldn't really cut it. It's bad and it's rather unhealthy too. Bad stress = bad credibility for myself.

I was back to Japan again for the second time around. This trip will be shorter than the first and it's a little different too. Instead of going back to Hokkaido, my family decided that it's time to go to the South. Osaka was our main destination. The flight from Hong Kong was indeed shorter than flying to Sapporo. Previously I was on a Cathay Pacific flight to Japan. This time around, its the All Nippon Airways or known as ANA.

Hong Kong's weather has been gloomy from the minute I touched down. It's a 5 hour stop over before taking the flight to Japan. Popeye's chicken for lunch and a little break at the business class lounge really helps to kill off the waiting time.

I took every opportunity to connect with my dear as she's unable to be on this trip. My trusted laptop keeps me company and I am glad that I have it from my first trip to Japan.

The call came and it's time for me to take off to Osaka. Flight ANA NH176 to Osaka/Kansai departs at 2:55pm and the flight was on time.

A picture of myself and my mom from the business class.

The inflight entertainment was alright as myself and my dad were digging through the Japanese MTV. I even tried to write the songs down into my little black book but with my horrible Japanese writing skills, I took a picture down of the songs instead.

The best thing that happened in this flight was the introduction to a seasonal drink that is called KABOSU. A sip of this and I was like "It tastes SOOOOOOOOOOO GOODDD~~~!!!!" These drinks tastes like lemonade but a little bit more sweeter and less sour. It's really refreshing and I was beginning to wonder if the drinks can be purchased when we are in Japan. After thoroughly reading the brochure, these things can only be purchased from the Kyushu islands in the far south. Hopes... dashed!

Dinner is served. Japanese food will be the only thing I'm getting for the night.

I am a bit baffled with the Miso Soup that this flight serves. What is this? I don't recall seeing gluish thing sticking out any of the past Miso Soups I've ever drank???

Surprisingly, the dessert tastes extremely nice. The soup massacre was then pardoned and forgotten.

We arrived into Kansai International Airport (関西国際空港) around 8pm local time. Kansai International Airport is a man made marvel whereby it's located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay. It's one of the man-made structures that can be seen from outer space.

The bus ride to Osaka city will take an estimated 1 and a half hours and the ride to the city is agonizingly long. With the rain and cold weather, it's the ideal time for me to have a few cat naps along the way.