The Final Journey

Our last full day was spent travelling to Osaka on more local and shinkansen trains. I am still tight enough to want to study the map to find how far the hotel is from the station and decide to walk rather than just jump in a taxi, even when we know to trust the taxi drivers here. But the walk was nice, and as we had forwarded our large luggage from Tokyo to here, we weren’t carrying much.

Another upmarket hotel (ANA Crowne Plaza) but as we were only spending one night there, and unfortunately needed to leave before 6am the following morning to catch our flights home, we weren’t even able to experience the breakfast. As soon as we had checked in we headed out for a walk in the general direction of Osaka castle.

A pleasant wander around Osaka, which seemed very quiet, but then it was lunchtime on a Friday and we seemed to be in a bit of a business district. Osaka has a number of rivers flowing through and around it, and the particular river we needed to cross had a little island in the middle, complete with a well tended rose garden. A number of Japanese were wandering around this garden, taking photos of the fairly empty rose bush branches – it is late October after all. The Japanese are renown in this country for photographing anything and everything. It’s good to see they do the same in their own country. I wouldn’t accept an offer from a Japanese person to view a slideshow of their holiday snaps.

Osaka castle looked a slightly more impressive than Matsumoto castle, though both are pretty. After our disappointment of the inside of Matsumoto castle, we resisted the urge to head inside, and instead admired the keep and gardens from the outside. It was quite busy, with a number of coach parties seeming to pick today to visit. Another sunny and warm day probably encouraged the casual visitor too.

After the required photos were taken, and the gardens admired, and the failure to spot any turtles or even Koi carp in the moat, we thought we would walk to the south part of the city and then make our way back to the hotel via some interesting shopping and eating districts. Then we saw how much walking that would actually entail, and decided to get the train to the south of the city instead.

The walk back took us initially through some less touristy and more local places, which made for an interesting diversion. Narrow streets with pachinko and food and drink stalls, and a room filled with men (all men, no women) playing the game Go, and another game that looked like chess (same sort of board, and wooden pieces engraved with different symbols), though they didn’t move like chess pieces, so no doubt an exotic variant. We then paid a visit to a knife shop, where a nice Japanese guy explained how the knives were made and what to look for etc, and his boss, a Canadian, then came out and took over the sales pitch. I was actually in the market for a kitchen knife, so didn’t mind the pitch, and we did in the end walk away with a nice, Japanese kitchen knife – a utility knife, or in their terms, a “petty” knife, which I think downgrades the lethality of such a sharp blade.

An interesting (to me, at any rate) shop in the electronics district, where I finally found the robotics and kits I was hoping to find in Tokyo. I didn’t buy anything though. Then we hit the main shopping area. Narrow streets, lots of shops and eateries and very, very busy. It was by then early evening, so the schools and offices had turned out, and it seemed the entire population of Osaka had decided to come here. Which made for a very buzzing and interesting place. We found an Italian place to eat, overlooking the busy street, and then continued up to an intersection to find an even busier street crossing it. And what must be the longest covered shopping centre street in the world. Probably. It went on for miles (ok, maybe a mile), with plenty of interesting shops along the way, and then all of a sudden stopped and the place became almost deserted. It would have been nice to have a bit more time in Osaka as it seemed to be a pretty and interesting city. But our bed, and early rise for the trip home, awaited.