My Life in Japan: 大阪城！　Osaka Castle

Hello All!

Here in Japan, whenever there is a holiday of any kind, it is considered to be a national holiday, or Yasumi-no-hi (vacation day). Therefore, there are a lot of holidays, which is excellent in my opinion! So this past Thursday was Foundation Day here in Japan, which meant... you guessed it, a holiday! After much debate and discussion over lunches earlier in the week, my friends and I decided to visit Osaka Castle, a very old fortress- complete with moat- located in the heart of downtown Osaka. I didn't know much about the Castle, but my friends seemed to, and I am always excited to experience Japanese culture (That's why I chose to study here, after all).
We all originally planned to meet at the train station close to the school (Hirakata Shi) at 10AM and make our way from there. Of course, come 10AM the next morning, I was awoken by my okasan tapping on my bedroom door, "Sarah, Sarah,　何時友達と会いますか?," a gentle reminder that, wasn't I supposed to be meeting my friends at 10AM, and it was, well, 10AM? Fortunately for all involved, everyone overslept, so we wound up catching the 1130 superrapidexpress train bound for Osaka.

Trains in Japan can be confusing when you first start to use them. Since I use the train everyday, I am now used to the lines and which station each line stops at. There are basically 5 different colors of lines, 2 of which are rapid express (purple and red) and stop basically only in Osaka on the south end, Hirakata-shi in the middle, and Kyoto on the north end of the line. The other 3(black, green, and blue) stop at more stops along the line, black stopping at every station. Blue, black, and green are frequent and come through Hirakata-shi every ten minutes on average, while the Purple and Red come through about every 30-45 minutes. Using those two, either Kyoto OR Osaka are only about a half hour, nonstop train ride away. I am very grateful to live and go to school near Hirakata-shi because it is the very central station on the Keihan line and is a major rail hub where all the train lines I use end up in.

For this particular day, I was the only one who had used the train system extensively, so I was in charge of the train portion of our trip. One of my friends, Nathan, had been to Osakajyo previously with his Japanese speaking partner, so he took us there from the train station and explained a lot about behind the scenes history that most people other than the Japanese would not get to know.

Nathan and I outside of the 'Suits & Suits' store in Temmabashi station,our destination station, trying to look debonair. Guess what this store sells.

This is the angriest you will ever see a Japanese person (picture taken in Temmabashi train station)

After arriving in Osaka, the second largest city in Japan and the business headquarters, we started walking towards castle grounds. We were all shocked by how desolate and abandoned the city felt. We literally walked 4 people wide through all the city's wide sidewalks. We inched across a major, 4-lane highway, taking our time because there was absolutely no oncoming traffic. In Japan, when it's a national holiday, it's a national holiday. Even restaurants had limited operating hours, and few were open.

While I am thinking about it, I will mention how the night before this trip, my otosan and okasan sat down with me around at the kotatsu and went over the general set up of downtown Osaka, some neat deals that were going on, and which train stations would be good ones to get off at and where to walk once I got off. My first instinct of course is to feel determinedly independent because the way they were presenting this information reminded me of how my dad tends to sit down with me bbefore a trip and give the lay of the land, look over street names, and possible other fun options and backup plans. And of course, I am usually obstinate and trying to show how grown up I am :). Look at me now, Dad! I will say, however, my ryoshin (parents) were simply being caring, and I was greatful for their advice and even used some of it.

Anyways, we pretty quickly made it to the castle grounds where there was a sharp contrast to the modern, urbanized city. I was astounded at how perfectly the Japanese had, for the most part, embraced and preserved this ancient part of their culture, and even more shocked that it laid in the center of huge,downtown Osaka. The castle grounds used a lot of stonework, some of the main entryway, and what you could only assume would be sentry posts had stones as large as semi-trucks used to build this wall.

After walking through a labyrinth-esque series of entry paths meant to funnel and slow down attacking armies, I caught my first glimpse of Osakajyo, and I was instantly struck by the decadence of the building and the grounds. Of course,it was one man who commissioned the building of this place,and looking closer, I could also see that not only was there an outer moat, which we had already crossed, but an INNER one as well! Though it was a grey, overcast day, the cold on the castle gleamed rather brilliantly, and the architecture of the building was so distinctly traditional and Japanese that I had another moment- similar to the one at the temple I visited- in which I was reassured that I was most definitely in Japan.

Of course, here I am being irreverent.

It was a fun journey, drawing ever nearer to the castle- there was so much information about things surrounding us. The grounds themselves were just as interesting as the beautiful castle that lived there. I couldn't help but see the castle and its walls as any defensive army's strategic dream. inside the walls of the second moat, there were steps to reach the top of the embankments where I could almost see the archers fighting their battles back in the 1400s. I commented on this to one of my friends, and he said he had felt the same way. There was a lot of military history here, and a lot of wars and sieges on the castle, both successful and unsuccessful.

Standing on one of the rampart platforms

The castle was huge and brilliant and really, quite breathtaking.

Once inside the castle, I was a bit disappointed to find that there was nothing of the original layout or rooms left in the castle. However, apparently when the park came into the hands of the current maintainers, it was badly burned. The building itself had been completely destroyed several times throughout its history and by the US during WWII, so little was left of its original contents. However, there were some neat things, such as model reconstructions of the various stages of construction and restoration and remodeling over the centuries. I also found a battle scene using little toy men which reminded me of my older brother, Matt, and his little green soldiers. If Matt could have professionally assembled soldiers into a semi-battle sequence as a living, I'm pretty sure he would have.

On the very top level of the castle, there was an open air balcony that one could walk around to see original artwork, and of course, the amazing view of the city. I tried to imagine what it would have looked like before modernization. I could imagine lots of rice paddies and servant thatchies, but the things that remained the same would be the plum orchards and the peach orchards, which were just starting to bloom.

After exiting the castle, we ambled around on the grounds for a bit, getting a few good pictures of the old military headquarters of Japan (the militant looking building), The apricot orchards, and even of a runner pausing at a shrine to offer up a quick prayer. Daily life here is so fascinating.

After the orchard, we were all starving, so we decided to try and brave the empty city and try and find some food. After walking a mile or so and being unsuccessful so far, we finally stumbled upon a small backroad which served as an outdoor mall full of shops, restaurants of all kinds, and even gyms and dance studios. We all got excited when we found an Italian cookery and bar, but much to our shagrin, it wouldn't be opening for another 3 hours, so we pressed on. Eventually, we saw something so wonderful, that we all simultaneously jumped at the chance to eat there: Mexican food.

None of us had had any mexican food of any sort our entire trip so far. This makes sense to me. The Japanese can cook Chinese, korean, and even indian food very well because the nations are all close. Similarly, Americans have mexican food recipes easily accessible because we are close to Mexico. Anyway, we immediately went in and put our name in- it was a posh little joint where all the cool people ate, but the prices weren't that bad. I spent about 850 yen on my meal. I had the shrimp and avocado tacos plate, but I think I maybe should have gotten chorizo or a quesadilla because my taco had no cheese, and cabbage as the lettuce, and it really tasted like Japanese food. Oh well. My friends all enjoyed their food, and one got a beef quesadilla that looked delectable.

The building the restaurant is in was also a mini mall. It had a Tsutaya store, which is a chain store where you can rent everything from movies to CDs to video games. It makes sense- we should have more CD rental stores in the states so you don't have to buy a CD everytime.