Thurs 2nd, Castle, Ferris Wheel and Whales

First thing on our must see list in Osaka was the Castle and gardens so we headed back there first thing and went into the Castle building. It's slightly mis-named as the original castles over the years were destroyed during various wars so the one that stands today is a concrete replica. We got amazing views from the top that made the 8 flights of stairs worth while, although it was full of rather rude and pushy Chinese Tourists! The rest of the floors on the way down are a museum and full of artifacts and the history of the castle. Very interesting but again full of the same rude and pushy tourists who thought nothing of standing infront of us whilst we were reading information on the walls.

The largest stone used in the walls of the moat is the Tako-ishi or Octopus Stone (no idea why) and it's thought to be 130-tonne - see the pic below.

After a walk through the gardens and a visit to the shrine, we jumped on the train to the centre of Osaka for a wander around. We had a nice lunch and wander around and then headed back to the hotel for a rest - all this running about and traveling around on trains takes it's toll on me if we don't have a rest!

Headed back into the centre for a very yummy noodle soup tea and then went to the Hep Five (STI anyone?) shopping centre which is strange for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it has a ferris wheel on the top (eh?) and secondly it has a massive red and white plastic sperm whale and calf hanging from the ceiling next the all the escalators (again, eh?). No pictures of either of these so you'll have to take our word for it.

And speaking of pictures, we were a bit mean yesterday and posted a picture of what we said was the Castle, it's actually the Former Osaka City Museum and was originally built as Army Barracks sometime after the Second World War. Was mean of us but we just couldn't resist, it does look more like a Castle as we would imagine one than Osaka Castle does!