Kyoto and Osaka Trip! Day 4

11/6/2016
The next day we had only one thing on our schedule: Osaka Castle. We slept in late and had to be rushed out of our hostel before we had to pay for another night. Jocelyn was feeling worn out and was ready to be done with this trip. Plus she had already seen Osaka Castle before. I too had already seen Osaka Castle, but I had spent the money to make it all the way out to Osaka, there was no way that I was going to leave early for tiredness. So she headed back to Fukushima by herself. Cormac and I decided to stick it out and go check out Osaka Castle.

This is what I had for breakfast. Japanese-style Curry Rice.

This is a beautiful building in Osaka as seen from the train platform.

I’m glad I stuck it out. We arrived at the park surrounding Osaka Castle and there was a festival going on. I’m not sure what festival it was, but it was exciting. There were lots of performers and bands playing music.

Sadly I did have two videos of the performances done by these bands, but the videos are too big to be uploaded onto this blog. (Psych! Youtube to the rescue again!)

There were also big wooden floats that had people inside and standing on top of. The floats were being carried through the park with chants and drums! The floats are called Danjiri. They’re made by hand and represent each neighborhood in whatever city or district they’re from. In this case: Osaka. In September they are raced through the streets and each one weighs about 4 tons!

We walked around the park for a while while making our way up to the castle.

Yup, we're still 12.

Cormac didn’t know you could go inside Osaka Castle, he thought you just stood outside like you had to at Fushimimomoyama Castle. But I think he was excited to go in and tour around. I had already seen it before, but I was more than happy to see it all again and refresh my memory. I vaguely remembered the Gold Tea Room that is in the castle and the history behind it, but being able to re-read it and see all the artifacts and art really made me happy. Plus the view can’t be beat!

We ate some takoyaki, watched some floats pass us by and made our way back to Shin-Osaka station to catch the shinkansen back to Fukushima.

                                          

 Cormac was beat and he fell asleep most of the ride back. I still have an inability to sleep on transportation, so I read my book and snacked all the way back.  Once we got back to Fukushima we went our separate ways and I drove the hour and a half back to Minamisoma. I made it home just before midnight, and crashed just about instantly. Still had to wake up the same time for work the next morning, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing.