Oh, Japan. That's So Raven.

So I think I mentioned something about going to Osaka as well.  Well, anyway, I went to Osaka in addition to Kyoto.  In fact, Osaka was the bread and Kyoto was the meat AND cheese in this Japan sandwich.  Nara was the mayonnaise because I stopped in the train station there and saw parts of buildings from the platform I was on. 

As one bartender delicately put it when we talked about how we'd only seen Osaka at night up to that point, "What else is there?  During the day it's just a bunch of buildings."  Thus, I present to you...A BUNCH OF BUILDINGS!

Oh, and here's more buildings at night.  With a river between them. 

Here's the Yoshinoya where we had our first meal. 

This area featured in all the night shots is Shinsaibashi.  If you go here, you will never see so many prostitutes in your life again, I'm sure of it.  Not scantily clad, smoking, broken, drug addled prostitutes, no.  Many of them look like they just got home from class.  Then again, many of them look like they just got home from an anime convention or from their nursing job.  The other strange thing was that they didn't target foreigners.  They ignored me and my friends for the lone Japanese businessmen walking by.  A welcome slip into anonymity, but still very different from the rest of the Asia I've seen.  Certainly made for good people watching in that kind of environment. 

As you can tell by the above photographs, we did eventually see Osaka during the day and, although it seemed a  bit like a giant conglomerate of bland buildings, we found the top tourist attraction in Osaka: Osaka Castle. 

Osaka Castle was originally built in 1585, but after being burnt by lightning, burnt by protests, and destroyed by World War II bomb raids, it wasn't really (re)built until 1995.  Nonetheless, it is an important historical site and one of the most famous castles in Japan.  Certainly more splendid and important than Nijo in Kyoto. 

Unfortunately, instead of opting for a realistic restoration, they opted for a modernization approach.  They installed air conditioning ducts (pictured) and gutted the whole building.  Inside is completely modern and is devoted to hologram shows and period piece displays.  Still, it was neat to be there and the top floor is an observation deck that allowed the views seen in the above pictures. 

As a majority of our time was spent in Kyoto, Osaka was left mostly undiscovered with only enough time for one day adventure.  I would like to come back to this area at some time, to explore more of Osaka, see more of the neighboring cities, and to revisit Kyoto and see the myriad of temples and shrines and pagodas that we didn't have time to see on this trip.  Japan is enchanting, for sure, and an entirely different entity than Korea.