Full Day Osaka (December 27, 2019)

January 03, 2021

Full Day Osaka (December 27, 2019)

After doing laundry and chatted with some fellow travelers last night, we had a descent night rest and got up early for the breakfast buffet as usual. We will explore the Osaka Castle today and would spend more time around Dotombori to soak in the city.

MM ready for the day

Beautifully displayed buffet breakfast at Hotel The Flag

Cold items

Congee and pickled items

No shortage of pastry and dessert items

Plum and oranges

It's hard to do it all

Rice and pickled items

Coffee and tea bar

Yes we can do it all

After the hearty breakfast buffet, we were ready to explore the Osaka Castle and its surrounding area. The Castle is located northeast of Dotombori. We took the metro there along with other salarymen who work at the city center. The Castle is surrounded by the moat as well as many modern high rises. We got off the metro outside the moat and strolled to the Castle in a somewhat rainy and windy December day.

High rise surrounding the Osaka Castle

City center surrounding the moat

Crossing the bridge over the moat to the Castle

A brief description of the bridge

Over the moat

Castle seen behind the rampart

Another view

Entrance to the Castle

The high rises seen over the rampart

The Osaka Castle

Rainbow over the city center on a rainy day

A rainy day in Osaka

The Castle itself is currently a museum. It has several floors and it exhibits the history of Japan related to the Castle. We waited in line to purchase the tickets and scurried through the multi-floor museum cramped up with other tourists from all over the world.

Tickets to enter the Castle Museum

Hideyoshi Toyotomi, a major figure associated with the Castle

View of Osaka from the Castle Observation deck

A panoramic view

Looking back at Osaka Business Park where we got off the metro

Castle Garden

After exploring the Castle, we were a bit tired and were scouting for potential lunch options. We took some more pictures outside the Castle and made our way across the moat back to Osaka Business Park. We found a katsu Place at an outdoors mall just north east of the Osaka Hall. It was a great lunch. After lunch I proposed to explore Shinsekai but kids were tired. So we headlock back to Dotombori and sat at the Starbucks at by the Glico sign and enjoyed couple of drinks and people watched. After resting at Starbucks for some time we made our way back to our hotel and grabbed a sponge cake at the Daimaru department store for a pre-dinner snack. Joanne made a reservation at a Shabu place within a few minutes walking distance from our hotel and that was where we had dinner. After dinner we walked back to the Glico sign and took in the scenery for one last time. Kids got couple of more snacks before we reluctantly headed back to our hotel to conclude the last full day in Japan.