Osaka Free Day

Today we are on our own and exploring a portion of the city northwest of our hotel.  There are two train stations, some mega shopping malls, numerous "shopping streets," and the Umeda Sky building.  We first left the hotel in search of breakfast, which appears to be limited in Japan.  We settled for one corner of an office building lobby at a coffee stand.  They served very good coffee along with ham and cheese toast.  We next went by Hep Five, a large department store, which later when we went in, was more of multiple level mall.  It is famous for its bright red Ferris wheel, accessed from the 6th floor.  We then walked through a long underground passage emerging into the Umeda Sky Building complex.  It is a twin-towered high rise connected at the top by a Floating Garden Observatory.  The connection was built a ground level and raised using four hoists on May 18, 1992, the first time this method of construction was used.

Before going up 40 floors to the circular observation deck, we walked around a "Island Forest," a grove trees with water all around.  We then wandered to the other side of the complex, where there is an "Island Garden" with vegatables growing, a meandering stream and various small sculptures.

Rice was growing on the front side.  

We next went up to the observation deck which involved a series of escalators, an elevator, another escalator that traversed the open area of the circular deck at the 35th floor, and finally a few stairs.  The view was amazing, though a bit smoggy.  

The number and density of buildings  in this city is astounding.  The amount of resources, food, energy and water needed to support just this one city is mind blowing.  We walked around the round platform several times, took a few photographs (which are not very good given the smog) and contemplated the staggering number of people living in this one area.  I can now understand why the GDP of this city is equivalent to Canada's.  We retraced our steps, and went into the Hep Five Mall, stopping for a smoothie and a brief rest.

We came back to our hotel after checking out a launderette.  We are taking a longer break in the cool of our penthouse room.

We decided to do some laundry in the afternoon instead of waiting until tomorrow, since we need to change hotels to connect up with the tour and there appear to be some interesting places to explore in the new location.  Our meeting time with the group is 6:30 pm.  The washers ad dryers worked well and we were finished in less than hour.  We returned to our hotel (the laundry was a 15-minute walk away).  We decided to explore another "shopping street" close to hotel and around the corner from the US Consulate.  We found a small Italian wine bistro operated by 3 young Japanse.  The waiter came outside while we were looking at a menu (all in Japanese script) and invited us in.  She was able to explain the main menu items in Italian, which surprisingly we could mostly understand.  We shared a caprese salad, Betsy had spaghetti "fruit de mare"  and I had risotto "fruit de mare."  The seafood was plentiful and very tasty.  We got to use a fork.