Golden Week 1: Osaka

My mom and dad came to Japan for ten days over Golden Week. Golden Week is always at the end of April and beginning of May and is when several national holidays land on the same week. Typically you can use two vacation days to get a full nine-day vacation.

For the first two-thirds of the trip, we crammed my parents into our tiny apartment and made it our home base from which we did regional sightseeing. We took advantage of a great train pass, called the Kansai Thru Pass, that let us have travel unlimited for two days.

We spent our first day going to Osaka, and we sure got our money's worth! We started the day at Umeda Sky Building, a great place to take in a view of the city.

After that we went to Osaka Castle. It was actually my first time there, even though I have been to Himeji Castle six times! Himeji Castle is one of Japan's most famous, and the best part about it is that its interior looks completely original. You get to walk to the top barefoot up the wooden steps that samurai walked up hundreds of years ago. Osaka Castle has a museum-like interior, including an elevator, but the castle grounds are much more expansive. It was definitely worth the visit.

We went out of our way to visit Bird Coffee, the hip cafe owned by the very hip Truck Furniture company. We got there around 3 p.m. but still had to wait 45 minutes to get a table! My croque madame sandwich and iced coffee was worth the wait.

Finally, we went to the Osaka Aquarium, or Kaiyukan, which I understand to be the second largest aquarium in the world. It's most famous for its gigantic, multi-floor tank, which utilizes massive panes of 1-foot thick acrylic glass and is home to a whale shark and manta ray among lots of other amazing creatures. I recommend it to anyone passing through Osaka.

This owl was part of a random Egypt exhibit