(no subject)
So yet again, its been a day. Woke up this muggy overcast morning in Kyoto and had to get to my hotel in Kobe for tonight. Thats the best I could do for availability, an entire CITY over. Osaka is en route and had numerous points of interest. So with the few hours before check in - to Osaka. The city houses a very large castle, but more notably is one of the major economic / industrial centers of Japan. A rumor I've heard is that the colloquial greeting here translates to "are you making money?". Note I had all of my (heavy heavy) stuff with me, so going across town to Osaka Castle wasn't an attractive proposition. So, in keeping with my trend of finding big tall buildings with observatories - Umeda Big Sky.
Apparently it isn't that popular these days - I was pretty much the only person there. The whole thing was built around an astronomy theme, and it had lofty ambitious platitudes everywhere, which together with its unpopularity was a little tragic. To get to the observatory you walk through a passage of nice romantic "White Day" scenery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Day).
Then you take an escalator hanging in mid air (thats right - those lines you see outside - vertigorific):
The best part is that you can walk up on the roof, this is all open air - at some ridiculous height. A nice view. See look - Osaka Castle. See it. (strain - its there) There - I saw it. That'll suffice.
Downstairs they had a nice corporate recreation of 1920s Osaka full of restaurants:
Then time for a train to Kobe - the 3rd entirely different city of the day. Neat art in station:
Also, Tokyo (JR East) has the Penguin - here JR West has a Platypus:
So - Train to Kobe: This is what the vast majority of my day looked like:
Apparently it isn't that popular these days - I was pretty much the only person there. The whole thing was built around an astronomy theme, and it had lofty ambitious platitudes everywhere, which together with its unpopularity was a little tragic. To get to the observatory you walk through a passage of nice romantic "White Day" scenery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Day).
Then you take an escalator hanging in mid air (thats right - those lines you see outside - vertigorific):
The best part is that you can walk up on the roof, this is all open air - at some ridiculous height. A nice view. See look - Osaka Castle. See it. (strain - its there) There - I saw it. That'll suffice.
Downstairs they had a nice corporate recreation of 1920s Osaka full of restaurants:
Then time for a train to Kobe - the 3rd entirely different city of the day. Neat art in station:
Also, Tokyo (JR East) has the Penguin - here JR West has a Platypus:
So - Train to Kobe: This is what the vast majority of my day looked like: