Osaka castle!
Sunny day yet again! So time to check out that castle.
You walk through the gardens before reaching the castle. The cherry blossoms are coming along nicely!
I didn't see the castle first. Instead I saw the massive moat wall. I had to walk around the moat for a bit before I was able to see part of the castle but as soon as I was on the bridge to go into the central garden you could see most of the castle. It wasn't until I was much closer until I could see it in its full glory.
The golden decorations on it shone amazingly in the sunlight. The contrast of the blue sky against the building made each other the colours stand out more.
Very picturesque.
Luckily I seemed to get there at the right time to avoid queues to get into the castle.
I walked up the 8 floors of stairs to reach the top and saw the view from the balcony. The first thought I had was 'look at all my minions, mwhahaha' as you could see all the little people wandering around the gardens and the baseball area (they do so love their baseball). But you could see right across the city so that was pretty cool.
Each floor had a different covering of the castles history. Ranging from the development of the toilets (poor b******s who had to clean the ditch..), to who built it, who gained control of it, destroyed it, rebuilt it and so on. It was quite interesting but most of it was in Japanese which was a little limiting but you could get the idea from pictures.
I did plan to go to the nearby museum after going through the castle, but after getting something to eat, the sun shining and it being so beautiful there I decided I didn't want to be walking around inside on such a nice day. So I found myself a patch of grass with a view of the castle and lay down. I went through my Japanese for a while before having myself a little sleep.
When I woke up it was almost 5. So I took my time walking back through the gardens, enjoying the sun setting next to the castle. Again, just chilled for the night. For tomorrow! To Kyoto!