Today was to be our last full day in Osaka. In the tourist info brochure we got at the hotel, it said there was a 2.6km long shopping street with delicatessens and stuff which Mum had wanted to check out. Whitney and Zoe wanted to go to Spa World, while Paul felt like doing washing and veging out for the morning. With the Spa World ticket lasting 3 hours, the plan was to meet back up at 1.30 and head to the Umeda Sky Building, with the Floating Gardens Observatory. The forecast was for rain in the morning turning to cloud in the afternoon. Perfect time to be in a covered shopping street.
After getting a day ticket and getting to the station, it was a quick walk to Ten-something-or-other area. It was right near where the meeting was on Sunday, so at least it wasn't totally foreign. Dean, Mum and I walked from half-way along to the northern end, before making our way back down the 2.6km long stretch. There were numerous massage parlours, shoe shops and ramen/soba/udon places, but not the delicatessens we were expecting. Mum had hoped it would be like the market area in Kyoto where they had weird things like glazed fruits, soy tea and other things, but this place was very much in keeping with Osaka, a big let down. We walked and walked, and I think there was still a couple more sections to go, but we had seen the same chain of massage places and drug stores about 5 times, so with time getting away, we decided to cut it short, jump on the subway and head back towards the hotel.
Whitney and Zoe had already arrived back before us, after being packed in mud and going in waterfall baths and stuff. They had enjoyed it, but it was now time to do something different. Paul had been by himself most of the morning, but started voicing what we were all thinking, "we are all dissapointed with Osaka and want to go back to Tokyo". Truth be told, even though we had already paid for our accommodation, Paul and I would have both taken the hit to wallet, if we could have headed back that afternoon/night. But with Zoe pooh-poohing that idea, we started making plans to leave very first thing that morning.
We still wanted to see the floating gardens, so we headed out to Umeda. After a quick look around Yodobashi Camera (while some of us used the facilites), we headed out to get our bearings. My inbuilt sat-nav was needing recalibrating, but after a quick look at a map on the street we knew which way to head and went in the right direction. We made it to the Umeda Sky Building about 15 mins later, and found our way up the tower. The lift from the 3rd floor to the 37th is a glass elevator, so Whitney was getting a little freaked out, but the lift was quite quick. Next it was onto the escalators, which take you from Level 37 to 39, over nothing. It's all enclosed, which was good with the wind being quite cold, but to go onto the full observatory, looking out and around the city, you had to pay700Y, and with what we had seen so far from the glass elevator being unimpressive, we decided to forego that experience. It turns out there was no gardens (well not that we could see) anyway, it was just named after Laputa, the floating gardens/castle from Gulliver's Travels. We headed back down to the basement as there was supposed to be a recreated 1920's/30's street down there, and it looked ok, but it was cold and everytime someone went outside, a gust of cold wind blew in.
We were getting tired (well I was), so the plan was to head to Abeno-Q's to potter, get some dinner then head back to the hotel to pack up our stuff for an early morning trip. Wouldn't you know it, it's closed on this particularly day. Just a random day to be closed, (perhaps they were all doing stock take or something), but it meant that I once again had been thwarted in my attempt to have another crepe. After wandering around some of the mini-malls near it which were open to keep out of the cold, we headed back to the subway station to get a train back to the hotel. We made a brief stop at a pastry/bread place (a la Bread Top), where we grabbed some mini-pizzas and stuff which would have to suffice as dinner, then via the Family Mart for some Ice Cream.
We ate, drank and got ourselves ready for the early morning train. The earliest shinkansen we could get was 6:08, which meant that we had to get the subway from our hotel at 5.20ish to give ourselves enough time get tickets and such. So lights out at 8.30, before I awoke early at 4am.
Been to Osaka, don't recommend going there again.
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