Day 14 (Tuesday, 19th Oct, 2010)

Today I took another trip outside of Kyoto; this time to Osaka. There really is too much to see and do in Osaka in one day (it's the third largest city in Japan), so I'll probably be back here one more time before I go back to Australia. Today's plan was sightseeing, and next time I come I can enjoy the city proper, shopping (try find the Osaka branch of K-Skit), and so on.

On the way to the station, I ran into my friend Naoki. We talked for a bit (in our strange mix of Japanese and English), and while we were there a friend of his walked past on his way to open his shop around the corner. Naoki told me that his friend sells juzu (prayer beads), and I mentioned that I wanted to buy one so we went around the corner to his friend's store.
I found a really nice wooden juzu for a cheap ￥1,000, so I was happy with that. It has one bead which is bigger than the others, and the shopkeep told me that it represents the eye of ho-oh, the Japanese mythological equivalent of a phoenix.



I said goodbye to Naoki and his friend, and with my juzu on my arm, I left for Osaka. The train ride was longer than I expected (about 40 minutes), but it was interesting watching the world go by through the window. Even though Kyoto and Osaka are separate cities, and in separate prefectures, its all one big metropolitan area, along with Kobe to the east. It's sort of like a Japanese equivalent of the tri-state area in USA, called Keihanshin.

Once I got to Osaka station, I had to try find the right connecting train to go to my first stop of today, the very famous Osaka Castle. This proved harder than I thought, because the layout of Osaka Station is very confusing, and it was hard to identify which platform was connected to which train line. This was the first time I'd had any trouble using public in Japan, even with my lack of Japanese.
After at least half an hour of aimless wandering about with a salty look on my face, I found an information desk. Hoping that they'd speak English, I went to ask them for help. Sure enough, the guy spoke English well enough to explain to me which line to take and which platform to get on.

I got off the train just on the outskirts of the castle grounds, which are HUGE. You don't have to pay to visit the grounds, just the main inner keep; the rest of it has just become a community park. On my way to the castle proper I walked past a group of girls practising a very strange dance routine, and also a baseball field. These are EVERYWHERE in Japan; they really love baseball.

As I mentioned, the grounds were huge, bigger than I expected. I crossed a number of moats and went through lots of big castle gateways on the way to top; all as imposing an impressive as you'd expect from such a castle. On the way up there were lots of little lookouts over the moat and surrounding metropolis, with some foot-high wooden railings that I'd imagine wouldn't be much help of you fell towards the edge of the wall. At one of these stops I had the good fortune to see a dove hanging out with all the pigeons! At least I think it was a dove; it was all-white, and smaller and differently shaped to the pigeons. Looked like the doves I've seen in movies, anyhow.

The white-and-gold tower that I was heading towards got bigger and bigger, until the sound of lots of tourists and school-children told me that I was near the top. There was a swarm of tourists, as would be expected, and I figured out that I'd actually come a sort of back way, from the north, while most people approach the keep from the south or east. I stopped at a cafe at the top for the usual kitsune udon, but it was quite underwhelming; and for the first time since I've been in Japan, I was unimpressed by the service. I guess the waiter gets a bit sick of all the gaijin he has to deal with.

After lunch I headed into the castle. It had the usual ¥500 admission, which were sold through the ticket vending machines that I am starting to get used to.
The interior of the keep has been turned into a museum of the history of Osaka; but when I went in I discovered that it had been entirely modernised inside. If you hadn't seen the building from the outside, you wouldn't be able to tell you were inside a hundreds-of-years-old castle.
The contents of the museum were interesting, to be sure, but I wasn't really in the mood for a heavy session of scholarly museum-information-board reading, and I was a bit short on time, so I sort of glanced over most of it. Looked at all the artifacts and models and such, but didn't read and take in any of the details.
On the top floor (there are eight floors) you can go outside and look out over the city, which was an incredible view. This also gives a good up-close-and-personal look at the roof of the castle; this was spoiled somewhat though by metal grating put in place to protect the delicate woodwork of the eaves from birds.

With Osaka-jo done, I went back to the train station and found my way to my next (and unfortunately final, due to time) stop in Osaka: Osaka Aquariam, Kaiyuukan. I must include that I did my token "getting lost" bit on the way, as there were three train changes, and stopped for some Japanese McDonalds (Teriyaki Chicken burger! Nice) which pretty much tastes the same wherever you go in the world.
I was unsure whether I'd actually make it to Kaiyuukan due to time, but it's open until 8.00pm and I got there around 6.00 when it was just starting to get dark. This actually worked out for the best: the two blue and white fairy-light models of the aquariums famous pair of whale sharks outside the entrance looked much more impressive than they would have in full daylight.

I paid my admission (¥2000!) and went in. The whole aquarium is based around the Pacific Ring of Fire, with different tanks representing different regions (16 exhibits, 27 tanks in all). It's laid out in a sort of large spiral, so you go around starting at the water's surface (which included non-marine life, like lizards), and you gradually get deeper and see each tank again from a deeper level.
I would love to list all the fish, seals, dolphins, sharks, penguins and such that I saw, but I can't remember them at all! Lot's of fancy scientific names.
Standouts though were the dolphins (which are always beautiful and mesmerising), the pair of huge whale sharks in the main tank, a very large manta ray, and a very lazy/laid-back/stoned green sea turtle that gave a good indication of where the creators of Finding Nemo got the idea of the turtles from.
Almost as amazing where the reactions from other Japanese tourists, lots loud "Oooooooh!"s. Entertaining.

I got to what I thought was the end of the aquarium, and turned a corner and was faced with a tank full of the biggest crabs I've ever seen; and this includes crabs seen in films and pictures. They're called Japanese Spider Crabs, found in the depths off the eastern coast of Japan, which grow as big as four metres. Amazing, and a bit creepy.
This still wasn't the end though; following the crabs was a jellyfish exhibit, with about 15 different kinds of jellyfish. Some tiny, some huge, and all very colourful and beautiful.
Still not finished, next up was a shark museum room, with no actual fishtanks proper, but various other fun/informative exhibits. There was a tank with a (dead) hideously ugly "goblin shark", a very fitting name. It looked very prehistoric, which I thought was the case; but apparently they still exist, and live in the very deep sea where all the other really ugly fish live.
There was a 1:1 scale model of the jaw of a megalodon, an extinct, prehistoric shark that was basically the real-life Jaws. The open jaw itself was taller than me, and apparently when they existed they are estimated to have grown as big as 16 metres long.
To add to the "Oh my god I'm about to be eaten by a shark" fun, there was a diving cage that you could go inside, with a lifesize model great white trying to bite it; so you could get an idea of what it feels like to be inside the cage facing a shark. Even though it was just a model, the experience was pretty intimidating. I want to do it for real one day though, when I learn to dive. (My sister has done this. Much respect, and envy!)
The shark room ended with a few small tanks with some very small sharks, all of which were very small compared to what we think of as sharks, and one of which looked more like a colourful eel than a shark!

But still, there was more! The last, optional, section of Kaiyuukan was a touching tank. It was a large (though very shallow, less than foot deep) swimming pool-esque tank with a number of small sharks and stingrays. All around the pool are guides, telling you where to touch them (hint: don't touch the stingray's tail), so you can pet and find out what they feel like. They rays were really slippery, sort of like an eel, and by contrast the sharks have very rough, sandpapery skin. I knew this from having touched pieces of sharkskin, but never an actual live shark.
It was an interesting experience, but I was a bit upset by the conditions of the touching pool. All the animals seemed really depressed and lethargic, like they'd been sedated (they probably had).
This is something I'm torn about with zoos and aquariums; I like to be able to see animals that I'd never really be able to see otherwise, but the captivity thing is concerning.

Last stop before heading back to Kyoto was the Kaiyuukan gift shop, where I picked up a very nice set of playing cards. Each card has one of the animals in the aquarium, with a photo, it's English and Japanese name, and where it's from.

I would have liked to have spent a bit more time in the city, experiencing the actual city itself, but time just ran away with me with all the getting lost. I'll be back again though before I leave.

Tomorrow, I put on my black hood and grab my shuriken, for a trip to Iga, the home of the famous Iga ninja clan, and Hattori Hanzo.