Osaka is a high-rise urban playground geared up for foodies, shoppers and party animals. Downtown Osaka is typically divided into Kita (Japanese for north) and Minami (south). Kita will likely be where you kickstart your adventure in Japan’s third largest city, a hyperkinetic hive of offices, malls, department stores and thousands of restaurants, all centering on the aptly named Osaka Station City.
And so we began our first day in Osaka's Kita District, with retail, retail, retail! Our walking tour would take us to the Umeda Sky Building; then through Umekita Plaza to Osaka Station City; followed by lunch in the basement level of Hankyu Umeda, a department store built over a raised transit walkway; then window shopping in the teen-oriented high-rise mall known as Hep Five; a visit to a small shrine hidden within the urban fabric; next, a moonlight visit to Osaka Castle; and finally, drinks back at the Umeda Sky Building Lounge.
We walked from our apartment hotel, Central Mansions, to the Tanimachi 6-chome Metro Station and took the Tanimachi Line to Minami-Morimachi Station, where we exited and got the #36 bus to Osaka Station City. From there it was a short walk to the Umeda Sky Building.
- Umeda Sky Building
Designed by Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara and now jointly owned by the Toshiba Corporation and Nomura Real Estate, the Umeda Sky Building was built in 1993 in the Kita district. The building consists of two 40-story towers set in a park-like plaza with living walls, gardens, walking paths, and water features.
Two additional towers were originally planned, but the bursting of Japan’s economic bubble in the 1980s put an end to that.
The existing towers are interconnected at their two uppermost stories via glass bridges with escalators that cross an open atrium space at an angle and deposit visitors at the hanging garden observation roof deck and the lounge/restaurant floor immediately below.
The observation deck offers panoramic views of Osaka (see Internet photo below) and was the feature that drew us to the Umeda Sky Building. We took the escalator in the lobby up to the meeting point for the bank of elevators that continue up to the observatory, but the line was so long that we bailed and resolved to come back later for a cocktail.
We settled for a quick walk around Fun Fun Plaza (I kid you not), where a lively Christmas market was in full swing in 70° weather.
Leaving all that Fun behind, we walked over to Umekita Plaza at Osaka Station City.
- Umekita Plaza
Here we saw some cool digital outdoor holiday displays and some not-so-cool people falling down while ice skating.
From Umekita Plaza, it was literally over to the raised walkway of Osaka Station City Sky Walk, leading to Hankyu Umeda, a multi-story department store at the station.
- Hankyu Umeda
Lonely Planet Guide Kyoto & Osaka notes that the train-station-department store concept started on this spot in 1929. We had experienced this retail mall/transit phenomenon in every major train station we’d passed through in Japan. Here, though, the retail component was above ground and vertical, and in the form of a department store, rather than an underground, horizontal mall.
Hankyu Umeda at Osaka Station City also has two basement levels of gourmet food markets stocked with everything your little heart could desire. (It's pricey. ¥6,800 is about €37,00. If you have a currency converter, you can do the math.)
The lower basement level at Hankyu Umeda was a good place to have lunch before our next retail extravaganza—Hep Five.
My husband’s lunch.
My lunch.
- Hep Five
Yes, it has a bright red Ferris wheel crashing out of the top floor, a pod of bright red fiberglass (?) whales suspended from the ceiling in the lobby, and dynamically dizzying escalators to whisk you aloft, but that’s just the beginning.
Hep Five is Teen Seventh Heaven: seven floors of inexpensive, trendy fast fashion geared to young people—mostly girls it seemed--with an entire upper floor dedicated to playing dress-up in rented costumes and taking group selfies in photo booths. Never seen anything quite like it. On a cuteness scale of 1 to 10, it was an 11. Ditto on the head-scratching scale.
Having had our fill of innocent narcissism, quilted pajamas, furry bra sets, and adorable salesgirls, we took an upturn through Hankyu Men’s, the six-story emporium next door. Lonely Planet describes it as, “One of Japan’s largest male-oriented department stores, …sell[ing] mostly wallet-busting designer brands.” All true.
Visually satiated, we plodded onward, taking an unplanned detour into chaos: a pachinko parlor!
- Pachinko
I asked my AI assistant to explain “pachinko” and this is what it said:
Pachinko is a popular Japanese mechanical game that bridges the gap between a vertical pinball machine and a slot machine. It is primarily used as a form of low-stakes gambling, functioning in Japan much like slot machines do in Western casinos.
How the Game Works
The Setup: Players use a knob or dial to shoot hundreds of small, steel ball bearings upward into a vertical glass case.
The Goal: The balls cascade down through a maze of brass pins. The ultimate objective is to get the balls into specific "winning" or "start" pockets.
The Payout: Landing a ball in a winning pocket triggers a digital slot machine on an LCD screen. Matching three symbols (e.g., numbers or characters) wins a massive jackpot, releasing a flood of hundreds or thousands of steel balls into the player's tray.
Gambling: Strict gambling for cash is illegal in Japan, so pachinko parlors operate under a special loophole.
Prizes: Instead of money, players exchange their extra steel balls for prizes (like food, cosmetics, or electronics) at the parlor's counter.
Exchanging: Players can then take those prizes to a separate, completely independent vendor usually located just outside the parlor and legally sell them for cash.
We didn’t see any prize laundering outside this particular pachinko parlor, but we did see a refresh shower inside.
Next stop—From Forbidden Play to Forbidden Love.
- Ohatsu Tenjin
From Japan Travel:
Officially called 'Tsuyuno Tenjinsha', the name 'Ohatsu Tenjin' as it's known today is evidence of the shrine's romantic past. This story, of two star-crossed lovers, with destinies intertwined, is the reason why so many lovers and young couples continue to be drawn here until this day.
We had our own mini-tragedy at the hidden urban shrine: one of us (much finger pointing, recriminations, protestations, and denials) must have set down the Lonely Planet Guide Kyoto & Osaka while taking a photo, and the book was lost and left for another pair of star-crossed lovers, hopefully a pair who could read English. Chagrined and still grumbling, we made our way to the Tanimachi Line at Higashi-Umeda Station, feeling rudderless and naked without our guide book. Relying on Google Maps, we exited the Metro at Tanimachi 4-chome Station and headed for Osaka Castle Park.
- Osaka Castle Park
It was a 20-minute walk through the park, a two-square-kilometer green space with a multi-purpose area, sports facilities, and hundreds of cherry trees planted along the river.
There was some kind of a neon light show going on in the park that night.
Impressive as it was, the colorful, flashing neon was overshadowed by the brilliant whiteness of the castle looming overhead.
- Osaka Castle
Per Wiki, “Osaka Castle is famous for its pivotal role in the 16th-century unification of Japan, its colossal stone walls featuring 100-ton boulders [set without mortar!], and its status as a symbol of resilience.”
The castle’s construction was begun in 1583. It was besieged in the 1600s and burned to the ground in a lightning strike in 1665 that ignited a gunpowder warehouse. The castle was not rebuilt during the feudal ages and remained a ruin until 1931, when it was reconstructed in reinforced concrete. Part of the castle was heavily damaged by Allied bombing raids in World War II and was not restored until 1995. Today the castle is a modern building, equipped with elevators and a history museum.
This is the view of the Osaka skyline from the castle.
The reflection of the castle in the river is magical.
- Umeda Sky Building Redux
We retraced our steps via the Metro back to Osaka Station City and the Umeda Sky Building. We took the elevator up to an angled escalator that brought us to the penultimate floor and the Lounge.
Over cocktails and still-bruised egos, we ordered another copy of Lonely Planet Guide Kyoto & Osaka online. Thank goodness for Amazon and the Kindle version (but not for Mr. Bezos)!
The night time views of the city from the bar were truly spectacular and the angled escalator tunnels vertiginous. Osaka really is quite the high-rise urban playground!
Keep it real!
Marilyn
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