We had managed to have a few snacks at our disposal, which were stashed away in our bags. There were some munchies and some apples from the Yudanaka farmer’s market. While we ate our snack, we began planning our day. We were going back to Tokyo in the afternoon, but we still had some time to possibly visit the Osaka Aquarium or the Osaka Castle. We took our time packing up and leaving the apartment to begin heading to the Namba Station. Everything seemed different from the night before. We saw different subway companies and signs everywhere that said Namba Station, but the JR line that we had originally arrived on was nowhere to be found. Occasionally, we would see a narrow stairwell down to our subway, but with the stroller, a roller bag, and a broken backpack, it was going to be difficult for us to make it down the steps safely. We needed to find an elevator.
After walking around a building that we thought was the train station, we decided to ask for help. This is where we found that the Japanese were truly the kindest people in the world. We stopped an older business man, who was probably headed for an important meeting. He didn’t realistically have time to help us, but took a few minutes to look down at our map and let us know that we were in fact at Namba Station. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where there was an elevator. We continued looking for an elevator, but ended up inside a mall. We did see some elevators, but they only went to other stores. After going back out to the street, we saw a group of construction workers wearing hard hats and bright yellow vests. While they were clearly headed to their job site, we stopped one of the gentleman and kindly asked if he knew where there was to the elevator to the Namba Station. He didn’t seem to know, but he grabbed a few of his co-workers and indicated that he would help us find the station.
From there, four men in construction uniforms took us around the building, where the station was supposedly located. We walked into the same malls and through a dark tunnel, but we weren’t having any luck, even with the locals guiding. It wasn’t until we walked all the way to the other side of the building then into the correct part of the mall, that we were able to get to an elevator that would take us to the subway. Our search with the workers probably took about 10 minutes, but the gentlemen seemed more than happy to help us. They seemed to get a sense of pride from the fact that they got us to where we wanted to go. I felt like while I tend to try to show the same compassion for people that I meet in my life, rarely will I allow myself to be 10 minutes late for work to do so. These men were true heroes.
We found out that the large station that would be most convenient for traveling on the shinkansen was the Shin-Osaka station. So, we took the subway there. We looked up a route that would take us to the aquarium, and it said that it would take about 45 minutes. Elizabeth was hungry and didn’t think that she could wait another 45 minutes to eat. So it was decided that we would look for a place to eat in the station. I thought that it would be a good idea to get a shinkansen ticket to Toyko, just to keep us from losing track of time and missing all of the trains. I figured if we got a ticket for a train leaving around 5pm, then when we arrived in Tokyo, it would only about 9pm. This would give us a little bit of time to walk around our neighborhood, before we went to bed.
With the shinkansen tickets purchased, we decided that this would be a good place to leave our bags in a locker. At this point, we were carrying a backpack that wouldn’t zip up, a roller bag, a stroller, Elizabeth’s purse, the tote back with the Japanese dogs printed on it, the camera bag, and on top of it all was the 8000 Yen worth of sake. We followed a sign that brought us to a bank of lockers. There was a gentleman standing there offering to help us put our bags into the lockers. I gave him my pasmo card, which he used to pay for the locker, then while I was in the process of putting the bags in the locker, I think that the gentleman pocketed my card, because I wasn’t able to find it for the rest of the trip. I supposed that it works both ways. You find local heroes that will go out of their way to help you get around, then there are scam artists, that take advantage of your sense of trust for the people of Osaka.
Once we were down to the bare essentials, it was easier to focus on getting some brunch, then traveling to a point of interest. The main concourse of the Shin-Osaka Station had a lot of places that sold gifts, candy, and alcohol, but not so many places where you could purchase a bowl of ramen or a roll of sushi. I, personally, didn’t want to sit down and eat. I thought it would be a better use of time, if we grabbed something quick, then took a subway over to the aquarium, where we could get a more substantial lunch. Elizabeth was very adamant however, that she wanted to sit and have a “real” meal, and so I told her to just pick out a place.
She picked out a dark looking restaurant, with an ATM style ordering service, called named らーめん しおじ, which translated to Ramen Noodles. Elizabeth walked right past the ATM and started trying to talk to one of the servers. The server didn’t speak much English, if any at all, so she directed Elizabeth back over to the ATM. I was hungry, and figured I could just find something with chicken and noodles, and I would be fine. I put in my order into the machine, then put in the 700 yen in coins into the machine. “What do you want, Babe?” I shouted to Elizabeth. She looked back over at me confused, she had still been trying to communicate that she was a vegetarian to the waitress. She walked over to the machine and I told her that these were the menu items for her to choose from. We look up at a panel with about 50 different buttons with names and small pictures on each one.
Finally, we were able to find out that there weren’t any vegetarian dishes available. Elizabeth was fed up. “I can’t eat anything here.” She said. “Why did you pick this place then? I already ordered. I have soup coming.” I told her. “Well, I thought that this was a place where I could talk to the waitress and specialize my order.” She said. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders, then told her about the vending machine process of ordering, that I had learned about back in Tokyo. I also explained how I thought it was actually pretty efficient to just push a button and get a hot meal. “I’m going to feed the baby.” She said as she walked off down the train station concourse, leaving me sitting alone in the restaurant waiting for my chicken noodle soup.
A few minutes later, the server brought me my soup. It was quite delicious and I was able to eat it rather quickly, as to not keep Elizabeth waiting too long. After finishing, I found her just down the concourse, then we took an elevator to the floor below. When we arrived there, we saw at least 50 different types of restaurants, all serving variations of the same rice and noodle dishes. Not really hungry at this point, I had virtually no input on her decision as to where she would be eating. The one that she decided on was a little place, which made you feel like you were in a small rural restaurant with vintage decor, wood walls and trim. It gave off the illusion that you were eating in a wooden structure and not in the basement of a train terminal.
The hostess seated us in a booth in the corner, where we were able to park the stroller and leave Escher strapped in his seat. There was chilled green tea at the table waiting for us, as well as a glass bottle of water. The waitress came by and spoke English to us well enough that Elizabeth was able to order a bento box of items, prepared to her liking. The service was relatively quick overall, but I was still anxious to see something touristy in Osaka. I began looking up points of interest on my phone and then seeing how long a round trip voyage would be. We were looking at around 45-60 minutes one way for a few of the sites such as the castle and the aquarium. It was getting closer to noon by now, so if we spent 2 hours of our time traveling, then we might only be able to explore a place for around 2 hours. Would that be worth the price of admission? Would that leave enough time for things to go wrong in case we get lost? We didn’t necessarily think so.
I found something, however, that was on the “Things to see in Osaka” list, that I thought we might be able to pull off in the time we had. It was only a few stops away on the subway, and also free. It was the Umeda Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is made up of two buildings that were built side by side and connected with a bridge of escalators going between the buildings. At the very top, there was a circular loop connecting the towers, where there are meeting rooms, windows for viewing, and a restaurant/bar. For an additional fee, you can take an elevator up to the roof of the building, where there is a garden terrace. After Elizabeth finished eating, we decided that while we wouldn’t be checking out anything that was historically significant in Osaka, that going to the Umeda Sky Tower would be a fun thing to check out before heading back to Tokyo.
We took an escalator back down to the subway level, then took a subway to the Umeda Station. Much like the other stations that we found ourselves in, there was a large mall located in the Umeda Station. This shopping center looked to be full of high-end clothing and jewelry stores. You could see the Sky Tower through the large windowed side of the station. Our mission became finding the way to make it to the tower. It looked like there was a huge construction site between us and the tower, so we would need to find a way under or around the site, which seemed to be a few blocks large.
We cut through a few shopping centers that all seemed to be connect indoors, by going up and down elevators. Eventually we found a sidewalk outside and followed it to a tunnel which lead under the construction site. It looked like the tunnel would lead us less than a mile from the tower. It was a fairly long underground tunnel, that was being used by pedestrians and cyclists. The cyclists were instructed by a sign to walk their bikes, but of course, they weren’t compliant with the rules and we were forced to avoid being hit by them.
Once on the other side of the tunnel, we headed for the tower, which was about a block away. Once we arrived outside the building, we entered with the intention of finding an elevator up. Just inside the door of the building, there was a diagram, showing which floors you had to go to, in order to get on the correct elevator to the top. First, we would take an elevator to the 4th floor, then switch elevators, taking a second elevator up to the 35th floor. At that point, we would have the option to go up to the Garden Terrace Observatory or simply take the escalator across from one tower to the other. This system seemed to be build with the intention that tourists would come for the view and then spend money on the additional elevator ride up to the garden terrace.
After taking the elevators up to the 35th, we entered a lobby, where we needed to decide whether we were taking the pay elevator up or the free escalator across. At first, Elizabeth was afraid to take the escalator across, opting to just wait on one side, while I took the brief journey. The tunnel enclosing the escalator was glass on three sides. After I went across and saw how amazing the view was, I was able to convince her to take the trip across on the escalator herself. Going up the escalator, then walking around the circular walkway was a really fun experience that allowed you to see how incredibly massive Osaka was from that height. We weren’t able to take the stroller up the escalator, so we had to take turns going across, while one of us stayed with Escher, who was sound asleep. Elizabeth, who had previously been reluctant to take the escalator up, was glowing with excitement when she came back with photos and videos of her voyage across.
After having a bit of fun and talking for a few minutes with a family from Hawaii, we took the elevators back down to the ground floor and then went to the basement. The bottom floor had what felt like a museum, which was made up of different small shops. It gave you the feeling of being in the city in the early 1900’s, with period style lights and signs, even a cobblestone floor and a old car. We ended up finding a modern coffee shop chain called Doutor Coffee, where we ordered a few coffees, before heading back through the tunnel back towards the train station.
Once on the other side of the tunnel, we found ourselves in a Panasonic store, which had realistic displays of their products. Among the gadgets and devices, there was also a physical library, where you could sit and read actual paper books. I wasn’t sure if this was really supposed to be a place where people could read or just a juxtaposed display, which threw back to an earlier time. I enjoyed seeing it nevertheless. There were different sections of the store which resembled different rooms of a house, the way that IKEA builds display rooms of their furniture, which looked like a kitchen, a living room, or garage, which were all displayed with Panasonic products. We even saw a Technics listening room, where there were people demoing high-end audio equipment.
Passing through the shopping center, we found another Yodobashi camera store and did another walk through, before heading back to the train station. We had already spent a bit of time looking through the Kyoto store, but in this store, I was trying to see about finding an adequate backpack, and looked at the audio equipment to see what sort of selection they had. Not intent on buying anything, we continued back to the Umeda train station, in preparation for our voyage back to Tokyo. This train station seemed way easier to find than the Namba Station was earlier and with in minutes it seemed like we were back at Shin-Osaka Station. We still had a little bit of time before our train departed, so after gathering our items from the locker, we purchased a bottle of wine and some fancy dessert cakes and tarts that we could indulge in, during our 4 hour train ride to Tokyo.
It was close to dark by the time our train began heading back. When we boarded the train on the shinkansen platform, and easily found that our seats were on the side of the aisle, where there were only two seats per row instead of three. We were able to get up anytime we needed to, in order to take care of the baby (i.e. nurse him, change him, keep him from crying). For a little, while we were able to use our outlet for charge our devices in addition to the outlet behind our seat, until a businessman sat down behind us, and needed to use the outlet for himself.