Osaka

We all caught the train into central Osaka in the morning.

We started in a long, long shopping arcade.  It was very busy!

Photo by Sandy

We spent quite a bit of time there, stopping to admire various shops, to have coffee - and to eat chips. A shop that makes its own chips/crisps to order. And very delicious they were too

Child, interrupted eating :-D

As we got towards the end of the arcade, Tatsuki got more and more excited.  Then he started running towards a bridge.  Because over the bridge was this:

It's a ferris wheel which goes up the side of the building, on the left, then goes over the top the building and then comes down on the right hand side.  In order that the passengers don't get tipped over, the capsules adjust their orientation, making odd noises as they do so.  Tatsuki loves ferris wheels. He especially loves this one.  Kaori does not love it.  She did not go on. But the rest of us did

Tatsuki and Austin having fun.
I was in the capsule with them. Lindsey and Sandy were in the one behind us.

Look! A boat down below.  We should go on that later

Getting up quite high

At the very top

Then we went on the boat.  Tatsuki declared that boats were very scary and refused to go on.  Weird ferris wheels - not scary; perfectly ordinary boats - very scary :-D   He and Kaori waited by the bridge for us

A spot of lunch and another potter about, then Austin, Kaori, Tatsuki and I went back to the house while Sandy and Lindsey went to find a place to buy an extra suitcase (I said we should have brought an empty one when we set off :-D )

Don't eat the fugu.
They're very dangerous!

And so to bed after a very busy day.

This morning Austin, Kaori and Tatsuki went home.  Lindsey, Sandy and I relocated to the Westin where we dropped off our cases and then hit the shops.  We found the Osaka Kiddyland. We found the gigantic book shop. We had lunch in a food hall. We found the main Osaka Loft (a kind of discount department store). We had dinner in the hotel.  Not a bad way of spending our last full day in Japan for this trip.

The view from our room:

May I draw your attention to the lack of traffic on the bridge?
Most people seem to be on the trains which are packed!