-I believe most of these pictures can explain themselves from the blog or from simple realization. The first and second picture from the top, I should explain what you are seeing. This is the picture from Below of the Sky Garden Observatory. The circle is the 360 degree walkway and sky walk. The two tube structures going in to it are actually an entry and exit escalator into the structure. The first picture is of the escalator inside the tube.
Today was another busy day, not quite as relaxing as I thought it would be, but still fun. Today we walked to Tennoji Station to get some more yen from the ATM and then decided to eat lunch since we woke up late. After eating lunch at Kara's favorite Japanese restaurant "Pasta de Pasta" (which serves Italian food...) we decided to take a train over to the Namba Train Station & Shopping area, which Kara says is called the "Heart of the City." The Japanese tend to do a lot of shopping in the station on their way home it seems as there were restaurants, clothing stores superfluous, and even pharmacies and grocery stores. We stopped at one restaurant called the "Golden Spoon" for a snack. It was a healthy yogurt/ice cream place that had amazing frozen yogurt. Kara got a small cake batter cup and shared with me it was great for the taste buds. Then after that we kept shopping but we did not find too much. We did find something cute for one of Kara's friends and will ship that off later. I never did find a coffee mug today, but I am not heartbroken as I have plenty of mugs and really the Japanese are more accustomed to tea apparently anyway even though there are coffee shops on every corner... We did find a few cool mugs yesterday but they were too expensive at $30+ dollars American. While here we haven't found any great "touristy" type shops anywhere... they may be non-existent and believe me when I say we have "looked." After walking around Namba Station we went to Umeda Station and checked out the stores there. We found many places to eat and clothing stores, but again nothing that stood out. After shopping for a while we went looking for our main attraction for the evening and our purpose for coming to Umeda Station and that was finding the Umeda Sky Building, which contains the "Floating Garden Observatory and Lounge." The top floor is a tourist attraction as it has a unique 360 degree panoramic view of the city of Osaka for the price of 630 Yen if you have a Thru Pass or a discount ticket found at some hotels.
The Umeda Sky Building was hard for us to find at first because none of the narrow streets have English subtitles as they do on the trains and buses. It did not help that I was extremely hungry and cold after having done so much walking and shopping today. We eventually ran into a kind street officer who knew English well and pointed us in the right direction, which is the way I wanted to go the whole time, but was unsure of myself...perhaps I should trust myself more. Once we got there we found a German Christmas festival going on at the base of the building. There were Asians dressed up in German clothes and a few "real" Germans who were there for the festival as well selling food and trinkets. Seeing the Japanese girls in old fashioned German outfits was rather amusing, I'd have a picture but it was dark and it didn't turn out. Once we traveled to the 40th floor where the Lumi Sky Walk is we paid and went inside. Once inside we saw people writing Christmas wishes on Stars and hanging them on lit trees and lines around the windows. I took a picture of our stars, which were about the Christmas season. After we walked around and took a few pictures inside the walk way we traveled up to the sky deck outside. The sky deck is 173 meters above ground level which in feet is approx. 567 1/2 Ft.. Some of the pictures you see on the blog are from the Lumi Sky Deck. I wondered why it was called the Floating "Garden" Observatory when there were no flowers there. The pamphlet given to us states that around the world there are 48 carefully selected towers that bear the name of "sky garden." It is a conceptual idea both architectural, historical, and philosophical that suggests that Man has tried since creation to go higher and higher into the sky from the Tower of Babel to the Floating Gardens of Babylon and that a tall structure such as a building becomes part of Man's garden of structures in the sky, hence the name "sky garden." It was well worth the money to visit the structure despite the difficulty in finding it.
Tomorrow we may go and get a little more yen so we have enough for our train ticket to the train station the next day and for Spa World. We have almost enough for both events but I just want to make sure we have enough for food, ticket, and fun. When we get back to Saipan we will simply live poor until we get paid next. The thing about the train station that stinks is that Thru passes only work for trains not affiliated with the company "JR Trains" and so JR has jacked up the price of going to the airport to 1,030 yen each because they are the only train that goes there. A day pass ordered online may have saved us a little yen if we had known and gone through JR for a day pass, but it is too late now. Either way we have spent our money wisely in Japan and because of that I am well pleased. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Again this is Grant, Signing Off.
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