11/10 - Osaka Castle

After our breakfast, we headed back to Hommachi [本町] station and hopped onto the green line, or Chuo Line [中央].  Today was the first day of our Osaka Unlimited Pass.  If you remember back to one of my first posts, the Osaka Unlimited Pass that we bought was a 2-day pass that gave us unlimited travel along with special coupons for discounts or free admission for various attractions.

We only travelled for two stations to Tanimachi Yonchome [谷町四丁目] station (Japanese station names can be so hard to remember).  We climbed back out to the surface and were instant greeted by a tall beige building.  This was the Osaka Museum of History and the local NHK television office.  We would later return to the museum, but we were more interested in the large park across the street.

Osaka-jo [大阪城] Park, or Osaka Castle Park, is a large public park with Osaka Castle smack dab in the middle of the park.  The castle is complete with moats, but sans water.  It was nice to see so much green in the middle of overwhelmingly concrete cityscape of Osaka.

Once we entered the park we saw "our ride" coming along.  Our ride was the Osaka Castle Park Road Train.  It was slowly chugging along the wide concrete park path.  We had to book it because we were afraid that the train would just pass the stop and they we would have to wait a half hour for the next one.  Or heaven forbid, we'd have to walk through this lush green park to the castle in the middle.  Lucky for us, we got it in time.  It was a free ride for us because we had a coupon from the Osaka Unlimited Pass.  We were the only two on this train this morning.  It slowly made it's way around the southern and eastern perimeters of the park before turning in towards the centre where the castle is.  All along the way, a tourist description of the park and train were broadcast over the train's loudspeaker in a few different languages.  I could pick out Japanese (of course), English, Mandarin, and Korean at least.  That tells you who most of the visitors to Japan are.  I think there were some European languages, but I can't recall with any certainty which ones were used.

We disembarked in front of the main gate to Osaka Castle.  We crossed the wide and, surprisingly to me, empty moat.  The moat was completely void of water.  In it's place, greenery like vines had overtaken the otherwise bare stone surface.  Inside the castle walls, we proceeded up to the main building.  Many locals were just hanging around in the park, but there was definitely a Chinese tour group milling about the grounds as well.  We came across a large time capsule that dated back to the World Expo in Osaka way back in 1970 (Oh my gosh, that's 40 years ago!  How old does that make me feel?)

We walked up to the castle.  It had a very distinct white and green with gold trim colour scheme going for it.  It was definitely not as impressive as Himeji Castle, but having a local castle in town is impressive enough for me.  How many towns can boast that (barring European cities, that is)?

Now some people may be disappointed, but I was totally okay when I walked through the main door of the castle.  Osaka Castle is not a real castle; it is the rebuilding of an actual castle.  It has the shell of a real castle, but inside is actually a very modern museum that tells you the local history.  It was a surprise to me, but I thought it was still a very neat place to visit.  So you have to walk in with the right expectations.  It was definitely not the authentic castle experience of Himeji Castle a few days back.

The castle museum hosts a fascinating exhibit of local history.  There are many dioramas.  By the way, I think the Japanese love their museum dioramas.  I, for one, love these dioramas too.  There were dioramas of old local buildings and dioramas of entire armies.  On this day, we were also lucky to sharing the museum with lots of noisy preschoolers on a field trip.  I wonder how much these 4-5 years old understand in this museum.  Or do they just love being outside of the school grounds running around with their classmates?  You could tell they were all from the same class if they all shared the same little preschool cap.

The castle also gave wonderful views of Osaka from the top outdoor viewing areas.  We could see west to the NHK and Osaka Museum of History buildings.  To the north was the river and a host of more modern office buildings plus the large Osaka Hall dome.  To the south, it was flat, but there looked to be a wide open space with what looked like foundations.  I wasn't sure what this was until we went to the Museum of History the next day.

Once we were done with Osaka Castle Museum (which we had gotten in for free with our Osaka Unlimited Pass), we made our way towards the Osaka Hall and the river.  We were aiming to catch the Aqua Bus Tour of Osaka.