Made my way to Osaka on the first funicular railway out of Koyasan, and after some fun finding my way to the hotel in the labyrinth by JR Osaka station was reunited with my luggage. I couldn’t check into the disappointing New Hankyu Hotel (no wi-fi, very noisy, miles to walk to my room). So I went off again for an afternoon’s tourism on a very bad afternoon for tourism, recharging myself on a tempura lunch in one place in the Gourmet Museum in the vast underground complex at Osaka station. I dipped the fried prawns into the miso soup instead of the tempura sauce which amused the chef!

Osaka Castle was crowded, I wore myself walking up the stairs but there was a massive queue for the lifts. The history about Nobunaga and Toyotomi and Ieyasu didn’t grab me. So I tried the Kaiyukan Aquarium instead which was even busier. But somehow more enjoyable, a complex change to castles and temples. So fascinating to watch other people, see how they behave. Not sure of the route I took, I realised I could have used the Chuo Metro line instead of the Loop Line - hard as an outsider to know what’s best. On the trains and metro they do have women and children only carriages. The ticket machines didn’t respond to my attempts to use until I saw people put money in first. Quite a few ticket had buttons to get the menus in English. At one point a woman was trailing a Peanuts themed bag on wheels which was squeaking - it proved to be a dog!

In the evening went back to the Gourmet Museum for another food intake. I had to nerve myself to plunge into a restaurant where I could communicate by pointing. I have no idea of what I was eating, what the squishy purple cube was, how I should eaten the different items in their small pots and dishes on my plate. To console myself I decided to have some sake and I went wrong here, I should have got the hot cup rather than the cold bottle!

After twice asking directions I went to the Floating Observatory which is a ring suspended between twin towers. The lights of Osaka are pretty like any big city. Most mind-numbing was the escalator up which is a tube over a very big drop.