Osaka-jo, Daimaru, and Universal Studios

Our second full day in Japan was spent in Osaka.

The first stop for the day was Osaka-jo Castle. It was beautiful. The castle is five stories and on outside and eight stories on the inside. It was built on a large pile over stones, overlooking a moat. The tower was first built around 1600. It was destroyed in 1868, in the wake of the civil war, and rebuilt in 1928. The 1945 bombings destroyed everything but the stones. It wasn't fully restored until the mid-1990s. The grounds cover about 15 acres and are a popular place to visit. The castle is surrounded by Sakura - 4,500 trees on the grounds. There was lots of people there for hanami.

The gate

The outer wall

Bridge to the castle

Moat

Castle

We paid to go inside the castle; it was somewhat disappointing. There were a few exhibits of Samurai outfits and the history of Toyotoshimi but no architecture of the castle. There probably isn't much architecture to speak of. The best part of the castle was the view at the top.

Daimaru

We next went to the Osaka shopping district. We spent our entire at Daimaru, a large department store. The store was pretty much the same as any other store, but I enjoyed looking at it. A lot of the clothes looked very interesting but many styles would look ridiculous outside of Japan. The shirts I liked best were associated with a label called "Titty." I don't think I could bring myself to wear it.

We ate lunch at one of the restaurants on the top floor of Daimaru.

After lunch we went downstairs to look at the food area of Daimaru. It was arranged like a grocery store - a very expensive grocery store. The biggest area seemed to be devoted to fish. I enjoyed looking at the produce. A single, large carrot was prettily wrapped and selling for more than $1.50. There were also 2 mangoes selling for $150! They were special mangoes. There was lots of breads, sweets, and meat. We had tasty samples of fish cakes, lemongrass and hibiscus teas, and a bean cake as rich as cheesecake.

Red bean muffins. The attendant scolded me for taking this photo. Guess she thought these were "special" muffins.

$150 for two mangos!!!!

Over $1.50 for one carrot

There was fish everywhere

Japanese Parmesan cheese

After Daimaru, there wasn't much else that seemed interesting in the shopping district so we headed back to Universal City. We stopped by Seattle's best coffee, where I had a tasty hot chocolate (especially tasty since I didn't know how to ask them to leave off the whipped cream or ask for skim milk).

Universal Studios

Universal Studios in Japan is located in "Universal City" just outside of Osaka. It wasn't exactly on our list of places to go in Japan (I would much prefer to go to Tokyo Disneyland) but Fuminori was really excited about going. And visiting foreigners provided the perfect excuse for an outing to the amusement park.

Since we spent the morning visiting Osaka, we didn't enter the park until 3 PM. By that time, the tickets were half price, but it was still really expensive. We met up with some friends of Fuminori, one of whom Scott knew from the University of Utah. Both couples were Japanese men who'd married Spanish women. Faviola grew up in Mexico City and was an English teacher in Japan. She had a 6 year old daughter (Kimi) who spoke Japanese, English, and Spanish. The other woman was from the Canary Islands in Spain but was of Taiwanese descent. Both spoke excellent English and were very nice. I spent much of the evening with them since I didn't want to ride on roller coasters with Scott.

Land of Oz

We all first went to see the show Waterworld. The effects were interesting but I couldn't understand anything.

There were lots of people at the Waterworld show

The "bad guys"

Then I watched Scott get soaked on Jurassic park. I happily volunteered to stay dry and take the pictures.

While Scott and the boys went off in search of roller coasters, the girls and I went to the Jaws ride and then the carousel. It was actually a relief to hear the women speaking Spanish, a language I know well enough to at least get the gist of their conversation. But since they also were fluent in English, it was nice to have people to talk to with whom I could communicate.

We ended the evening by watching the Light Parade. That's always fun.