Another day in Osaka
We had planned to visit the Universal Studios Japan location with roller coasters and sunshine, and snacks and sunshine, and Nintendo world and sunshine, but because of all the sunshine as well as the 150$ a ticket pricetag, we opted to do some other things.
I booked a noon time visit to the aquarium and with our new found train station wrangling skills, we left right on time and we arrived about 5 minutes early to get our slot.
The aquarium was shaped like a large cube, you take an escalator all the way to the top, and then slowly begin to circle around the outside.
The middle of the cube has a large tank that houses multiple whale sharks, sunfish, regular sharks, manta rays, and lots lots more.
Around the outside of the walkway are a series of multi-level enclosures that allow you to see the top of the water, the middle of the water, and the bottom of the water as you circle around.
It was very cool to see dolphins, otters, and penguins diving into the water at one level, and then sailing through the water on the next, and then diving deep on the last.
Halfway down, We headed to the cafe in the middle of the aquarium where they had aquarium themed foods, which was everything that I could have hoped for from a Japanese aquarium cafe.
Bask in the glory that is a latte with a whale shark-shaped marshmallow and a hot dog that is twice as long as a normal hot dog made to look like an eel.
They also had many one-off style exhibits with things like jellyfish and piranhas.
I considered it a win that we got to spend the hottest part of the day inside of a large air-conditioned building.
The kids bought little things at the gift shop and we headed out into the sun and city.
Right outside of the aquarium was a large mall, total '90s style with three floors of shops of all different kinds and shapes. We wandered around and grabbed a couple of rice bowls, and looked at the various sundries and knickknacks in Daiso stores and fashion shops as well.
Just outside of the mall was an extremely large ferris wheel overlooking all of Osaka from the waterfront. We grabbed tickets for the air-conditioned car, but not the glass bottomed one, and headed immediately past the line and into the ferris wheel.
I am not a fan of heights, but it was very smooth, and it felt pretty cool being able to see the city from such a high vantage. We were above the bridge tops, higher than most of the buildings, and able to see all of the city around in every direction.
After that, we hopped back on the train, and headed home for a much needed nap.
After the nap, we headed to our walking tour of Osaka. They took us around the bright tall neon and three-dimensional sign area, where we grabbed street food like takoyaki, yakitori, gyoza, and more.
We saw some of the hidden sights of Osaka as well.
Even though we were right near the loudest part of Osaka, we ducked into a small alleyway that led to the old part of Osaka, where shrines and temples are still visible, and the noise dropped to almost nothing. It was wild.
Henry prayed at a local temple, and we headed to a boat to sail down the river and see the sights from the water.
The captain of the boat spoke a little bit of English, but what was more important, was that she played the shamisen while taking us up and down the river. It was a really nice addition to the ride.
We grabbed some extra street food and grabbed the train back to home.