Japan 🇯🇵 - Day 51, 52, 53, 54 & 55 - Osaka

After an 8 hour journey from Togari Onsen, including an extra long bus ride and 2 Shinkansen trains, I finally arrived in Osaka around midnight. Given how late it was, I couldn't take public transport to my hotel, so I had to take a taxi. It cost me ¥3600 (22,63€) for a 15 minute ride.

I admit I less than I hoped during my stay in Osaka. I was quite tired from the past 2 months of travelling, and the whole Togari Onsen debacle just added to that.

I did however go to see the Osaka Castle Park.

The Castle park is located on the south of the Ōkawa (Kyū-Yodo River). The whole park is surrounded by sort of moats, so it feels like it's on an island—even though I don't think it actually is considered as being one.

There is quite a bit to see in the park, plenty of old Japanese-style buildings and statues. As you walk through it, you can definitely feel its rich history.

There is even one sign explaining bullet marks on a wall. The sign says it was due to WW2 air strikes during the months leading to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The Castle was a primary target because it housed army facilities and an armaments factory.

Apart from the castle, I also had my usual night walk around the city. That felt very much like Tokyo, only slightly less busy and buildings a tiny bit packed.

As a last note about Japan, I want to talk about food packaging. In France, and in Europe in general, we tend to have quite simplistic packaging, with a bit of writing, a couple illustrations and maybe a bit of colour. The Japanese however, they do it very differently.

It seems they tend to have more sophisticated, with huge writing—which looks very cool and perfectly unreadable to me. Maybe it's just because I don't understand what it says, but to me it looks way more complicated and less stripped down.

They also sometimes have completely unrelated illustrations on the package, like here, where they have a typical anime girl with fox ears and a tail on a packet of what I'm guessing is some sort of tempura with rice noodles.