Osaka Castle and Shopping

I embarked on an expedition to conquer the Osaka castle yesterday and spent an hour trekking there by foot. It was most satisfying to reach the top and look over the city... then it got a little chilly and I had to get out from the wind.
The castle itself is beautiful from the outside, but because it has been through 2 destruction/restorations the interior is regulation standards and acts as a museum for random artifacts.




One thing that did catch my attention is the Osaka time capsule. Initiated during the 1970 convention that also inspired the abandoned amusement park seen earlier next to Banpaku park. The multi-layered capsule has items that represent our modern day life. The top tier is scheduled to be reopened every century whereas the bottom level will be left untouched for 5000 years and set to be reopened in 5970. It is a very optimistic project, and it's sweet to think that once we were so naive and hopeful about our future... now all we talk about is the end of the world.



After conquering the castle I headed to Umeda the other main district in Osaka. It's a little more traffic busy through this part of the city in comparison to Namba. With over passes covering major intersections directing people up and over the mass flow of cars, creating multi layered traffic streams.

There's 4 levels of traffic
No. 1: Train
No. 2: Overpass
No. 3; Pedestrian
No. 4: Motor way

There were department stores and malls littered throughout Umeda, there's ones underground: Whity and Diamor, above ground: Hanshin, Dimaru and Hankyu, then there's the youth orientated one Hep Five equipped with a ferris wheel. I went to check out this so called Hep FIVE. It was floor after floor of jampacked shops with blaring/clashing music and dolls up girls dolling out nasal-forced 'Irashiamase's. Mostly quantity over quality, all very similar in range. It was pretty overwhelming and I wonder at how all these stores amongst stores manage to stay open every day.

However the foodcourt in some of the departments are worth a visit. They have anything and everything that's eatable. I went a little crazy with all the samples.


Tom took me on a walk tour through America Mura today. Small streets lined with hip hop, raggae and fashion stores. Unlike Hep FIVE American Mura is lined with hip boys out the front of stores checkin out the scene.

Tom took me to Village Vanguard a book/novelty/everything shop.

It was impressive, but not as impressive as the next store. We went to check out the 390Yen store, I thought it was going to be like the $2 shops back home, but it blew my mind! There were racks and racks of beautiful clothes, I had to restrain myself... with only 2 dresses.