11/10 - Santa Maria

This day was definitely a tourist day.  You can blame the Osaka Unlimited Pass that I keep mentioning.  It has a sheet of coupons for different attractions, some of which are free with the pass.  So why not take advantage of it all. 

After the 1-hour Aqua Bus Liner tour, we walked from Osakajo Pier to Osaka Business Park station to get back onto the subway.  There may have been a JR Osaka Loop station right by the pier, but we would have had to pay extra for JR today.  All the subway rides were unlimited today with the Osaka Unlimited Pass.

In order to get into Osaka Business Park station, we had to go through a shopping mall at the bottom of a large office tower.  As we were looking for some facilities to use inside the mall, we came across a dog cafe.  Literally a cafe designed for dogs to enjoy their treats in style.  They really love their dogs in Japan. 

We finally found the subway entrance after a few minutes search and were on our way to Osaka-ko [大阪港], or Osaka Harbor.  Then we had to speed our way to the harbourfront known as the Tempozan [天保山] Harbor Village.  It was about a 15-20 minute walk from Osaka-ko Station.  Our brisk walk from the station to the harbourfront was through a noticeably newer part of town.  The buildings were not so crowded in together.  The roads were wider.  If you look on a map, the coastline here looks very square and unnatural.  So my guess is that this area is totally built on reclaimed land.

We finally found the harbourfront area where we would spend a few hours at a few of the tourist attractions and shopping centre.  But where was the ticket office for the Santa Maria?

The Santa Maria is a motorized replica of the actual Santa Maria that Christopher Columbus used during his voyages.  Now it's here in Osaka to cater to the tourists and help them to explore Osaka's busy harbour.

We had found the Santa Maria's berth and asked where we could get our tickets.  The attendant sent us back indoors and up to the second floor.  We exchanged our Osaka Unlimited Pass' coupon for an actual admission ticket and we were good to go.  We lined up with only a minute to spare and we were soon boarding the replica sailboat.

The 45 minute boat ride would take us on a loop of Osaka Harbour.  At the beginning, we would pass right by the 112.5m tall Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel.  Before the completion of the London Eye, this was the tallest ferris wheel in the world.  As H looked carefully at the ferris wheel from the boat, he spotted a special rider on one of the cars.  See if you can tell from the photo. 

Further down, we passed under the very large Hanshin Expressway Osaka Harbor Bridge.  It reminded me of a bridge in Shanghai that I have seen in photos. 

Just on the other side of the harbour, we could see Universal Studios Japan.  We were just there the day before.  Seeing the park from the harbour, you could tell that we were looking at the back of a lot of the buildings.  But these weren't real buildings, but only a facade.  So on this side, we could see the empty backing for what it was.  The day before on the other side, it looked like a real American skyline.  It didn't look so impressive on this side, but it was an interesting look behind the scenes.

At least from the water, I could get a better view of the Hollywood Dream roller coaster.  You could even hear the screams from this far out.  That was kind of fun.

We turned around and headed past the Tempozan Harbour Village and then rounded the edge of Tempozan.  We could see a whole new area of Osaka, Port Town.  There were new shiny towers jutting up into the sky and some fancy buildings down closer near the water.  One of the smaller buildings was a large glass dome, which I found out was the Osaka Maritime Museum.  This area is just chalk full of tourist attractions.

Even further down from Port Town was Osaka's only Ikea.  It was huge, like most Ikeas, and in the middle of nowhere, also like most Ikeas.  But there was no mistaking the characteristic blue and yellow colours of this Swedish furniture giant.

After spending most of the ride up top in order to take photos, it was getting really windy.  Ominous clouds were also rolling in over the city at this point.  We were hoping that it wouldn't rain too badly.  At this point, we decided to explore the rest of the ship. 

Hey!  Look!  It's Chris!  Christopher Columbus, that is.  Hm...I wonder if he knows his way around Osaka Harbour.  He seems to be pointed off towards the port side of the boat.  I think we should steer the ship starboard, though.