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| Umeda Sky Tower in Osaka |
Like I mentioned on my previous post talking about Inside the Osaka Castle, there are many places in Osaka where you can have a great panoramic view of the whole city. However, let me correct myself, there might be many but that are accessible to the public are only two as far as I know.
If the Osaka Castle takes you back in time for obvious reasons, then the Umeda Sky Building is going to take you well ahead in time with its massiveness and huge dimensions.
To get to this huge skyscraper is quite easy just take Midosuji Line (red line) and get off at Umeda Station. Otherwise, you can take the Yotsubashi Line (dark blue line) and get off at Nishi-Umeda. In both cases you’ll have to walk some 5-10 minutes depending on your pace.
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| Osaka underground map |
The Umeda Station is quite big and if you’re not in a rush and you want to see the Japanese Society pace, then sit down as soon as you get out of the station and see everyone rushing.
This massive building is mainly owned by Toshiba Corp. but many other companies have their headquarters in the building, like Mazda, AstraZeneca among others.
When I got there they had a typical Christmas German style market, and I have to say it was quite nice. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular though a young man came to me to try some new sweet popcorn. I think Japanese haven’t acquired the taste yet. Sweet popcorns were nice, just “a bit” cold. Poor lad, he was freezing but he showed me a nice smile, followed by a “oishi…ne?” [Delicious, isn’t?] To what I nod and yes “hai, oishi”.
Getting to the Top – The Challenge
The subtitle is quiet ironic, I know. But you’ll understand why I wrote that when you visit the building. Although, I’m going tell you what I went through so you can avoid the same experience.
There’s no sign that tells you which entrance you need to take to get to the top. To add a bit to it, you get lots of people walking coming out and getting inside the building.
I went into the first entrance and they told me “no sir, the other one”; went to the other one and same answer. Just where the ++++ is the lift to get on top of this building.
Suddenly this guard saw my clueless face and pointed upwards with this finger, to what I said HAI! Then you get on the lift and you’ll get up some 5 floors, then you have to get out and take another lift. There aren’t any signs anywhere.
At least, there weren’t any in December; perhaps they’ve changed things around a bit. Then you’ll have to take the other lift where takes you almost to the top. In there you can see how you leave the city below you and the experience is quite unique.
Then you get to a lobby where you have to pay. Yes, I know I haven’t mentioned anything about paying but you have to. I had to pay around €15. In the lobby, I presume they rent the place for weddings and special events and you can see that immediately because they have a lot of ads and typical weddings ornaments spread around the floor.
Once you pay, they’ll tell you to go upstairs. Now those stairs are amazing because they cross the whole circumference shaped ceiling of the building. The stairs go rather slow just perfect speed to enjoy the experience. They also have glass windows on the sides so you can see downstairs and trust me everything and everyone looks sooooo tiny.
Finally you reach the top and don’t get scared by the guards; they have lots of them spread around all corners of the top. But they are nice people; they smiled at me and told me “beautiful” in his broken English.
Now that’s what I call a massive panoramic view. Being on top of the tallest building in Osaka does have its advantages, because there’s literally no place hidden behind any building. There you can see how big Osaka actually is. It’s a quiet big and it doesn’t seem to end, although it does near the mountains to the north and the west.
As you walk along the top you’ll come to this heart shape monument where every couple how has got married over there has placed a lock with the names of the couple. The background music they were playing turned the whole place into a quiet romantic scenario.
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| Heart Locks on top of Umeda Sky Tower |
Well time to go for now….. they’ll be more I promise.
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