The hotel here in Osaka has a nice Sunday breakfast buffet, and by hotel standards, it wasn't outrageously priced. I enjoyed lots of stuff I don't usually get for breakfast. Bacon, eggs, cereal, and toast played NO part of it. Plenty of fish and vegetables, and the one that is going to have the most of you shaking your head was squid dumpling. They also had a "vegetable juice" drink which was swamp-green in color, but you don't know if you don't try, and it was surprisingly tasty.
Last month my Colorado colleagues asked me to put on my international work seminar, they enjoyed it, and gave me a luggage tag that says, "I am a traveler, not a tourist," and I take a fierce, weird pride in that. But I got it in my head to go to Osaka Castle this last Sunday (I flew in Saturday morning), which sounds pretty touristy, but it does have historical fascination. It was thoroughly enjoyable, reading about the swirl of intrigue around the Osaka Castle, the struggle between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans for power over all of Japan, the plottings, the conspiracies, the battles, the ultimate dominance - until the next era when there's a new dominance. As much as the siege of Masada, as much as the Cortez campaign, as much as the breaching of the Great Wall by the Mongols, as much as the winter in Valley Forge, as much as the Battle of Britain, this is how legends are made.
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But I wanted affirmation, so I went down to the front desk and said, "What should I do in Osaka?" to which came the reply, "Go see Osaka Castle," so I was affirmed. The young lady pulled out a map.
I said, "That doesn't look too far. I should just walk."
She laughed. "Oh, no, the map is small. If you go to the [huh?] station and take the train to [what??] station, that will take you close."
"It looks like if I just follow the river, I should get close."
"Oh, yes."
I'm a small-town boy. Subways in English can confuse me, let alone in other countries. I mean, I can get through, sometimes acting like I know how, but the danger of ending up at a landfill at the end of a line is always there. So I walked. I left at 9:49 am and got to Osaka Castle Park at 10:35, and given that I probably would've gotten lost for 30 minutes taking a wrong line or wrong direction on the subway, it was a good choice.
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View across the river on the road to Osaka Castle.
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View on my side of the river on the road to Osaka Castle.
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Inside the outer perimeter, looking to the outside of the castle grounds, with walls and the moat.
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On the castle grounds, with a "zen rock" (my description) in the foreground.
Then I walked back. That time, I did get a little lost, but that’s okay because I’ve gotten lost every place I’ve visited, but I only overshot my hotel by two blocks to the north and a half block to the west before finding a map on a street corner, and then I was back within another 10 minutes.
About three and a half hours of walking, climbing, standing, minus about five minutes for a rest in the park. I walk about 3-4 miles an hours, so call it three miles walking there, three miles back, and the stroll around the park and grounds. I got in my exercise. I could tell. I had to shower and change clothes when I got back. Warm autumn day in Osaka.
