Osaka Day Five
Ahh I’m trying to catch up! We are on Day 8 now technically, but my writing is a few days behind. Osaka. OK this in one ugly city. If Tokyo and Osaka grew up together as siblings, Osaka is the one that joined a gang and ran away from home. I have almost nothing positive to say about the appearance of this place. That said, I had a great time here. Today was a solo day, so I resumed my breakneck travel pace I perfected last time. I swear I walk at about 7mph when I am traveling alone. I started at the Aquarium which was fairly disappointing. I mistook this aquarium for another big one in Japan from a Vimeo video. This one was basically just a place for school kids to run amuck while fish happen to be there too. I ran through, took pictures of whale sharks, then headed to the world’s largest ferris wheel.
From a distance, the ferris wheel looks like any other: big, round, and tacky. Once you are on it though, things change. I did not know I was afraid of heights until I rode this monster. I also did not know there were two cabin options when I bought my ticket: normal, for sane people, and clear glass, for crazy people. Of course I bought the clear cabin ticket and found myself in a completely clear/glass cabin. The expression “don’t look down” was impossible to follow. The view was excellent despite the cloudy weather (and when my eyes were open). I was the only one riding the giant wheel — apparently everyone else was at the aquarium.
Next I decided to get really high (not like that, don’t worry Mama). Whenever I get to a new city I try to get as high up as possible and see what there is to see. My plan usually involves finding the tallest building, getting to the top, and looking for cool places to go from up there. In Osaka, the Floating Garden qualified. On my map, there was a building that looked exactly like this place fairly near to where I was. I made my way there, got to the the top floor and found a room with one door, no windows, and a bell. Naturally I rang the bell. A woman came out, looked me up and down, and said “I think you are in the very wrong place.” She pointed at my map and it became clear that I had walked the complete opposite direction of the Floating Garden and ended up at the top of the “Phoenix Tower”. Cool name, very wrong place.
So I set off in the right direction. I realized along the way that I was completely “off the grid”. While in the underground passage to the other side of town, I was thinking about how utterly unreachable I was. If someone wanted to find me or contact me at that moment, it would have been completely impossible. No one knew where I was and my location was about as random as possible. Eventually I reached the Floating Garden which was way worth the epic trek. The building was crazy looking and another vertigo inducing experience. The escalator to the top of the building are suspended about 40 stories with nothing below. Why I continue to do this to myself I do not know.
After the Floating Garden I headed to Amerikura.. or something. Basically Harakjuku if it was addicted to prescription drugs. It started to rain so I ducked into an underground shopping mall. The size of said mall was completely overwhelming and I continue to be amazed at the existence of these places. A mall of this size in the US would be something to behold. Here, they exist about every seven feet. I don’t think there is anywhere in Osaka or Tokyo where you could dig 10 feet and not hit a retail location.
The train back to Tokyo was very relaxing. I rebooted my search for the perfect train music and fell asleep listening to the XX.
