This morning I met up with Miss Kageyama on the train platform in Akashi, and we took the super express train into Osaka. There were a couple of things I wanted to see in Osaka. The first was the aquarium – it has a great reputation in Japan. I also heard that the smallest mountain in Japan is near there, so I was eager to climb it.
The aquarium wasn’t too hard to get to. We made two subway switches and then we were there. Next to the aquarium was a big shopping center, and in front of the shopping center was a huge ferris wheel.
In front of the aquarium there was a small area where some emperor penguins were enjoying the great outdoors. There were people milling about, and it would be easy to stick your hand in there and get bit. I was surprised that they were so close to the public. There were also a couple of minders there to politely ask folks to stand back if they were getting too close.
The aquarium layout was really interesting. You start at the top of the large building, and then work your way down into the depths. They had some huge tanks, some of the biggest I’ve seen. Even the monstrous whale shark had lots of room to roam. As you proceeded deeper in the aquarium, you are able to see animals swimming deeper and deeper. At the bottom are jellyfish, giant crabs, and it is pretty dark. We took about an hour to go through the aquarium, and it was really interesting. I took lots of pictures, but most didn’t come out very well – just blurs of fish whizzing by at full speed.
We left the aquarium and went over to ride the ferris wheel. The sign out front said it was the “world’s largest giant wheel”. I don’t know if that’s true – I went on the London Eye a couple of years ago and that was pretty big. The ride took 15 minutes to go all the way around, and the views from the top were fantastic.
Afterwards we went into the nearby shopping center to get some snacks. We tried some Chinese meat rolls (called “nikuman”) and then ate a few more selections from the food court styled places. We asked around afterwards, and found the direction we needed to go to climb Japan’s smallest mountain. It was only a fifteen minute walk north.
The mountain is called Tenpozan (天ä¿å±±), and when we got there we saw why it is the smallest. Miss Kageyama took a picture of me standing on the summit. It wasn’t much of a climb.
After our “strenuous” hike, we went back to Osaka to see meet a friend of Miss Kageyama’s – she works at the Umeda Sky Building – one of the more interesting architectural wonders of downtown Osaka. I had always wanted to go check it out, and it turns out that Miss Kageyama had an insider track to get in.
We met her friend in the lobby, and then she got us a discount to go to the top observation levels. The view was the best yet of Osaka. We were even above the ferris wheel from our previous trip.
By that time we had hiked all over Osaka. We were both tired, so we decided to skip dinner in Osaka, and I invited Miss Kageyama over to my place for dinner. Surprisingly, she accepted, and so we had to sneak her into my apartment. I stopped at a grocery store to buy some supplies, and then we walked the long way to the apartment complex. We checked to see that everything was clear, and then we walked up and in.
Miss Kageyama helped me cook up some spaghetti with a white mushroom sauce, and then we ate a pretty simple dinner and talked about our day. After dinner I walked her back to the station – by then it was dark so I think we escaped undiscovered.
