My head is so full of all things Asia at the moment that I haven't even considered a trip abroad following this one, but it's fair to say that this journey had done nothing but increase my desire to see other parts of the world.
I don't know if there are any other different countries that I'd like to visit in this part of South-East Asia as I feel like this trip has pretty much covered all of the 'major' nations, and the only real country of any significance that people making this kind of trip might have added would have been Myanmar - a place which I do have some interest in.
I'd love to come back and explore some different parts of Asia in the future, but I think that having spent such a long time here I'll probably be venturing off to a different continent the next time I plan to go somewhere.
Time constraints obviously play a factor into things (as do my finances which have taken a hit on this trip) and it's most likely that as most of my other week or ten day long holidays have been I'll find somewhere in Europe to visit, although I could literally throw a dart into a world map and be happy to visit wherever it landed.
I have already had an interest in the Americas, both north and south, and for a while I considered travelling through South America after discussing it with one of my friends, but I decided that the well trodden path was probably better off for me considering the length of time I had, and the amount of money that I'd saved up.
Australia and New Zealand are also somewhere that appeal, although not as much as they do to some people, and I think that is somewhere you also have to devote a significant amount to in order to see if properly. I like the idea of visiting islands like Fiji and Samoa as well as taking in the two most-visited countries on that continent.
Parts of Africa interest me too, although I realise that it would be difficult to construct a major trip around a few countries like I have done here.
In 2010 I wanted to go to the World Cup in South Africa, but things didn't work out for me so I never got chance to go there, but that is still a country I would love to visit someday.
One thing I would enjoy doing in Africa is going on a safari - it's a dream I've had for a long time. As you can probably tell from the amount of zoos that I've visited during my time in Asia, I really enjoy animals, and I think that seeing them close up in the wild would be a magnificent experience. Pretty much anyone who I've ever spoken to that has been on safari has said that it is incredible, and I think that is something I will definitely look towards doing in the future.
Wherever I end up travelling to next, it will have some serious competition from this journey as it'll be hard to find many countries that stand up to the likes of Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan - I'm definitely willing to give it a go though.
There aren't really many countries on this planet I wouldn't want to visit, and although I'll have planted flags in at least ten more having spent a quarter of a year in Asia, I still feel like there is much more travelling left in me!
*********************************************************************************
I'd really love to know the impact that all the walking I seem to do every day has on me. I'm sure my knees will let me know in about five years or so....
There aren't too many days when I come back feeling like I haven't earned a good nights sleep.
I hadn't had chance to look through what I was going to do today, but I spent some time whilst watching the NBA Playoffs in bed researching some of the things there are to do in Osaka.
I'm not sure if it's just the location where I'm staying that causes it to seem that way, but like Kyoto, Osaka seems quite spread out.
Not in the same way as there aren't pockets of things to do in each place, but there is quite a lot based in the centre of the city, but then there are a number of things to do in different sections of the city that it would be hard to do anything else alongside.
Not that I was planning to visit whilst here, but for example Universal Studios Japan is close to the coast line in Osaka, but it's about a million miles away from anything else. Although I guess if that's what you were planning to do with yourself then you wouldn't be too bothered.
But when you compare that to somewhere else I know there is a universal, like in Singapore, the studios there are Sentosa Island which is also the home to shopping centers, golf courses and beaches. The one in Osaka is surrounded by.... well, just water!
The weather looks like it should be reasonable for the two full days I am here which made things a bit easier for me to select stuff to do, and after a bit of debate I decided that I was going to spend some time exploring Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium which is actually close to the same piece of land that Universal Studios sits on. Well in the bay next to it.
Although I've frequented a couple of different zoos on my travels I don't think that I have actually visited an aquarium. I famously tried to in Indonesia but discovered it was closed when I got there, but I figured I'd picked a very good one to take a trip to today when I looked on their website and saw all the fantastic species which you could see on seven or eight different floors.
I've seen posters for the aquarium in a couple of different places so it must be relatively popular, and from what I understand it is one of the biggest not only in Asia, but also the world - in terms of its size and the number of animals residing within.
If you gave me the choice of going to a zoo or an aquarium it would be a very difficult decision to make as I love both equally. I always find that there's something exciting about going to an aquarium and just watching the fish swim around, although the same could be said when I get to the monkey cage at any zoo as I spend ages just watching them move and swing around all over the place.
If I had twins it'd be like asking me to pick my favourite one.
With the aquarium being quite far out of the city, I wasn't going to be able to walk it all the way there, but I made an effort to make the journey much easier for myself and involve less changes so I went to one of the main stations that seemed to sprout off Osaka when I was there yesterday.
If trying to figure out what train to catch wasn't confusing enough then trying to get the machine to work was the first brain taxing thing I had to do as I didn't realise that you had to insert your money first before then selecting your train line and then the fare you were going to pay.
After switching the machine to English I usually think I'm good to go, but as the large map above me was all in Japanese, one of the attendants came along to help me figure out the right thing to do which I very much appreciated.
I know Osaka is quite a big city that lots of tourists visit, but I think that's one of the differences in Japan as in pretty much every other country that I've been to once you get outside of the airport, you're on your own!
Here in Japan it's very different though as I guess English is more widely spoken in different parts of the country, and I'd imagine that as this is a country that tries to attract people to it through tourism that if you head to any major Japanese city you'll come across someone placed in exactly the same position of a major train station who is hired to provide assistance to tourists.
Just whilst I'm on the subject generally, and I'm not counting my chickens because the experience isn't over yet, but I have to say that I find Japanese people to be among the most respectful and polite people that I have come across on my travels so far.
There seems to be a different mentality here than in China or Korea where people will quite happily think about themselves first where as here, just simple things like allowing pedestrians to cross the road or by letting people off the train before piling onto the carriage come as standard without having signs everywhere to let them know what the correct etiquette is.
I can't remember if I wrote it in my blog before but I think that for a traveler who has never experienced Asia before I think here and Taiwan would be a great destination to visit.
Once I'd made my way to Umeda I had to catch the train a couple of stops to a station called Honmachi where I then needed to change lines and head towards Osakako which is where the Tempozan Harbor Village is - the location of the aquarium.
The train wasn't that busy as we made out way there in the sunshine, and as there are quite a few different things at the Harbor Village pretty much everyone disembarked there and went towards one of a few different things.
I actually got off at a different exit than the one which leads straight to the aquarium as I needed to get myself a drink, but as it happened it made little difference because on my way there I came across one of this locations other big attractions which is the Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel:
I think I mentioned when I was in Yokohama that the Yokohama Flyer (not sure if that's it's actual name....) used to be the biggest in the world but was then usurped, well turns out that the one I was standing in front of was the behemoth that did the usurping:
At 112.5 meters tall, and with a diameter of 100 meters it also laid claim to br the tallest until 2009 when it was overtaken by the Daikanransha in Tokyo...... which was the largest one in the world until a little thing we like to call the London Eye was built.
Tempozan's massive Ferris Wheel is currently 17th on the list, most of which, unsurprisingly are in Asia.
Walking past the huge structure in awe of it, and also wondering just quite how scared I would be at the top I headed on towards the aquarium which was an extremely impressive looking thing itself:
When the outside of a building makes a good impression on you, it's hard for the inside to fail, and I spent the next two hours enjoying pretty much every single feature that was contained inside the aquarium.
The building itself is constructed over seven different floors, you enter and buy your ticket on the second floor and then take an escalator all the way to the top where you are taken through nineteen different zones which represent different types of animals in different parts of the world.
The first thing you came to was a section on domestic sea creatures, and from there you were taken all throughout the globe to see different animal species.
Usually my tactic when I come to the zoo or the aquarium is to take lots of pictures, but today I decided to go for videos (which can be found here) although that didn't stop me getting my camera out and marveling at what I was seeing:
After the first two floors you are guided towards a 40m tall tank which stands in the middle of the building and runs like a column throughout the next couple of floors. It's called the Pacific Ocean tank and you walk around it and down a ramp as it recreates a natural environment for the animals contained within:
There were several places where you could just sit down and relax which I did on a couple of occasions. It always feels very theraputic to watch fish swim around, and if I was a psychologist I definitely feel like I'd have a huge marine tank in my office to make my patients feel at ease. There were a couple of other tanks as well as the main Pacific one which had different kinds of fish in, and these were good to look at too as colourful fish from the reef swam around in front of your eyes:
As well as the major creatures like sharks and rays, I enjoyed watching the fish which swim around in groups and follow each other. The best thing about them is when they splinter because something comes between their shoal and eventually they find a way to reunite before all having to dart off in a different direction to either avoid danger or because something has startled them.
Once you'd completed the floors of the Pacific tank there was a section on the Japan deep sea fish.....
....and then an area on jellyfish which was really fascinating as they are almost as hypnotizing as the coral reef fish:
Lastly there were another couple of different sections where you would see Ringed Seals and sea-lions close up.....
.....then there was a section just for me on Rockhopper penguins......
.....and then just before the exit there was a 'touch pool' of sharks and rays from the Maldive Islands:
The aquarium itself was absolutely amazing and I was generally fascinated by pretty much every single one of the tanks that there was. I really enjoyed walking around, and aside from a few sections where the glass was quite a small area and people had to crowd around, it was relatively open and you didn't have to battle for space to look in any part of the building itself which is an achievement.
Even though the aquarium was quite far out of town, heading back into the city allowed me to fit another activity into the day which was going to be visiting Osaka castle.
Castles are part of Japan's heritage, and seeing a picture of Osaka Castle on the walls of the corridors in my hotel it seemed as though it was designed in the traditional style, and even though I wasn't going to get an opportunity to walk around it, I hoped that the grounds would still be open or that I could at least get close enough to get some photographs.
I managed to make my way back to Honmachi Temple and then took the brief walk from there which began to get Osaka Castle into my sights. Thankfully it's up on a hill so can be seen from quite far around.
The grounds were indeed open, and from the map I looked at it seemed as though there were sort of three areas; the outside gardens, the central section - surrounded by a moat, and then the part which the castle was contained within.
I made my way through the gardens and found a wall to stand on which put me in a good place to take a picture of the castle from distance:
Having walked a little further I eventually came to the main gate.....
....through which I could get pretty close to the castle and take some good photos:
Osaka Castle is the symbol of the city, and it's easy to see why as it's quite a striking image:
From what I have read you can take tours around the castle, but rather than it being a tour of the building itself it's more like a museum to how things used to be as I'd imagine that pretty much the exterior building and the significant walls around it are the only things which remain. Speaking of the walls, I managed to get a couple of good pictures of those as well, both on the outer two areas, and also from the middle section:
All that was left to do from there was to head back to my hotel which took me about an hour on foot as I carefully managed to navigate my way back in the vague direction of Umeda, and then from there I knew exactly where I was going.
I was quite happy with managing to squeeze two different activities into today as when I was looking at the map I figured that I might have to do these two things in two separate trips, or miss out on one of them, but it was good that I managed to work a way around doing both. I hope that I am able to come up with something equally as enjoyable for tomorrow.
Under the Sea
The Little Mermaid (1989)
No comments:
Post a Comment