The Port City of Osaka, Japan

Posted on November 25, 2007
Filed Under Quando, World & Travel |

Konnichiwa from Osaka, Japan! Finally - I have the opportunity to write a decently sized blog post about my ventures in Japan so far. Unfortunately, as you will see, there isn’t too much to show off in Osaka - think of it as being the Newcastle to Sydney, but about 100 times bigger.

Here was the plan for Wednesday (20th Nov):

1. Get up early and purchase Osaka Unlimited Day Pass for 2000 Yen, allowing full access to all public transport for one day, and free entry to 24 main attractions in Osaka (sounds like a great deal huh?)
2. Get on the Osaka cruise and check out aquarium, then check Osaka Castle, then check Umeda District, then check Shopping District in Dotonbori or Nipponbashi, then go home.

Unfortunately, things didn’t really go to plan… the day started off with SN losing her Weekly Mansion Osaka hotel access card, which allows lock and unlock access to the hotel room that access card is assigned to. What this meant was that the lost card could have meant any random stranger that picked it up could come into our room and steal our money without even breaking a sweat!

We scowered the room for about 30 mins before eating breakfast, with no success… however we did establish that we both remember it being in the room at the time it was lost, which is a good thing for security reasons, but a bad thing come check out time when they charge us a lost-card fee. Regardless, we trudged on to Himeji castle to pick up our Osaka Day pass.

Unlimited Pass - 11am:

It took us a while, but we finally figured out how to get around on the subway system. For those interested, you have to look at the train map to see where your destination station is on the map, and what the associated Yen amount is for getting to that station (eg: 230 Yen) . You then insert the yen into the machine, then select from a range of buttons (200, 230, 350) for the amount stated in the map - then bob’s your uncle - a ticket pops out.

Osaka is laid out fairly efficiently with subways lined up in a grid matrix, so if you needed to go to particular station which wasn’t on your line, it is very quick and easy to do so. Trains arrive within 5 minutes of eachother, with their final run at 11:45pm.

After buying our ticket we rushed off to Higashi-Umeda, which is the closest subway station to the Information Center, to purchase our Travel Pass. It took us a while though, there were bucket loads of people all with their own direction, bearing and speed - it was difficult to find what ended up to be a fairly small kiosk representing the “Osaka Visitor Information Centre”. After asking at a nearby hotel, we searched hard and fast for the info centre, eventually finding it right where we first exited the station.

First Destination: Osaka-Ko (Santa Maria, Aquarium)

(Image: Osaka Port from Osaka-Ko, Santa Maria Boat)

Can I just say that the boat cruise is pretty lame… You can tell it’s a winner when the only other people on the boat are at least 3 times your age. Win! Anyhow, it was a good time to make the most of it, so I just took random photos of things like this:

Apart from this, there isn’t much else in the port area. I’ll write up something about the city in my next post.

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