Osaka in a day

We bought ourselves Osaka 1 Day Amazing passes when we first arrived from the information centre in Osaka train station. The pass allows you to use the subway, selected private railways, the bus system and enter some attractions for free. We started off our day on Thursday at Osaka Castle. The pass included Osaka Castle Garden too, but we didn't bother since nothing was in flower it just looked like a bunch of dead trees.

Osaka Castle from the Osaka Museum of History

There is the option of a lift or taking the stairs. Take the stairs. The lift only gets you halfway up anyway and there is a massive que. From the top you get a pretty good view of the city. The museum was packed when we got there, and we didn't spend too much time looking at the exhibits because they were mostly in Japanese. There was one place where you could dress up in replica costumes to get your photo taken. We would have done it but the line was humongous, and we had a tight schedule as it was.

The third wall protecting the castle

View from the top of the castle

Our next stop was the Osaka Museum of History, just across the road from Osaka Castle. From the large windows on one side of the building you can get excellent views back to Osaka Castle. We found this museum more interesting and just better in general than the Osaka Castle Museum.

Yay Cherry trees!

We then jumped on the subway and headed out to Nagai to go to the Botanic gardens and the Museum of Natural History. Neither of us had been to a museum with dinosaur bones and so we were interested to see them. It was a bit of a walk from the train station to the Museum and I was starting to question my original plan to head to Umeda and then out to the bay area. We found what we thought was the museum entrance and a very lame little bug display. Only lame because we were looking for the dinosaurs obviously. Since everything was written in Japanese we followed some dinosaur posters upstairs to be told we only got the downstairs exhibit on the Amazing Pass. We were pretty bummed, and headed out a door into the botanic Gardens. We happened to spot a whale hanging from the roof outside a nondescript door, and wandered into the main exhibit hall of the Museum. Just what we'd been looking for. We spent quite a while wandering around. It would be great if you could read Japanese, and understand it.

Hello Mr Mammoth

That's a lot of cicada shells!

Cool to see the retractable claws of a tiger close up!

Actually getting a photo of some of the large butterflies we saw in South America.

By now it was about 3pm. We'd gotten a late start, because someone was lazy. Not me.
We wandered around a mostly bare Botanic Gardens; That's what you get for coming at the end of winter. There are still a few cherry trees out here and there. After leaving the gardens and starting to feel quite footsore, we found a cafe for lunch. At this stage I suggested we skip Umeda, which meant skipping a ferris wheel and an open viewing roof on a building. Instead we jumped back on the subway to head to the Bay area.

Whale shark!

Pretty sure sunfish know how ugly they are

I make it sound all very easy by writing "jumped back on the subway". In reality, most of these trips involved changing train lines at least once. Our main reason for going to the bay area was to see Osaka Aquarium, which has a whale shark! When we reached the bay area, I realised we had timed it badly. We were getting there after school time and so the place was packed with screaming, running, jumping, bashing-tanks children. As with most attractions, people recommend you go early or late to enjoy it without the crowds. I would recommend this doubly for the aquarium. It would be a completely different experience when it's not filled with rowdy children. Something more a long the lines of a chilled out dive into the deep. The building centres on a huge tank that contains a whale shark, hammer head sharks, and many rays, other sharks, and large groupers. You take a spiraling pathway down around this main tank, with small takes on the outer side of your path. When you begin, you see ducks, otters, seals and penguins out and about up the top of their tank. As you slowly descend you start to see the main tank and also the depths of the seal and penguin tanks. There appears a dolphin tank somewhere along the way, and there are side rooms with jellies and other sea creatures in them. Eventually, after taking a slow winding path down beside the huge central tank, you reach the end of the large aquarium. There you find a large octopus in a tank, that may or may not have a small child following the octopus in the tank, making it impossible to take a photo. After heading up an escalator there is a small tank with arctic seals, and a touch tank with rays and sharks. At the end of that room there is a small rain forest exhibit with sloths! But they were tucked into balls sleeping when we were there, so not so thrilling.
We really enjoyed our visit to the aquarium and I would highly recommend it. I really wish we'd made a special trip to see it later at night. It isn't covered by the Amazing pass, but you do get 1 000 Yen off for giving them a rip out coupon from a booklet you get with the pass. That equals just over a dollar, not really worth putting up with the kids for.

That blur in the tank was the hammerhead

Big rays in the touch tank!

We were starting to feel pretty wrecked by this stage and had a pick-me-up coffee before walking a very short distance to the Tempozan Ferris Wheel. There is the option of a completely see through cabin, but you have to wait in line because there are only 6 on the whole thing. Obviously we opted for the normal cabin and were quite happy with the view we got from it. The sun was just starting to sink and we were starting to feel the same. On the way to the train station we walked through the shopping centre that is near the ferris wheel. If I wasn't feeling tired I would have definitely gone in what appeared to be a petting zoo. It was filled with everything from dogs and cats, to an owl, iguana and kangaroos. Trying to plan our trip back was a bit confusing because of how many times we would need to change train lines. In the end we increased that by a bit extra when we accidentally caught an express train that changed lines, and had to catch a train back.

On the ferris wheel

Osaka from the ferris wheel

Arriving at our station, worn out and hungry, we went to get the same dinner as we had the night before. Only to find it was shut. Instead we found a barbeque place and had goyza, meat on a stick, deep fried chicken and some beans. Pretty tasty, except the beans in pods are really chewy and stringy.

My thoughts on the Osaka Amazing Pass are that it is good value if you are going to have a full on day like we did. Including the 100Yen we saved on our Aquarium entry we "saved" 2600Yen each, not including train fares. Train fares would equal between 800 and 1000Yen, meaning the pass did save us money because it was 2300Yen each.

Our day planned out for you for reference:

Train from Kyobashi to Temmabashi: Osaka castle area
Train from Tanimachi 4-chome to Nagai changing lines at Tennoji: Botanic gardens and Museum of Natural History
Train from Nagai to Osakako changing lines at Hommachi: Aquarium and ferris wheel
Train from Osakako to home base, changing lines at Morinomiya, Kyobashi and again after we got on the wrong train home.