Friday 11th April A boys day out!

 

Those of you who know us well will appreciate that Trev and I may have differing feelings faced with this sign.Trev, along with the vast majority of men on the trip, is looking forward to it very much. I on the other hand can think of lots of other things I would rather be doing!

It turns out to be a very interesting couple of hours, including watching an iconic English train character dubbed into Japanese which is quite funny.

Not surprisingly, the exhibition begins with the story of the bullet train, which we are surprised to learn came into service in 1964, in time for the Tokyo Olympics. The first trains were not quite as streamlined as the one we went on and I can see why they were nicknamed 'ducks'


Trev is very excited to be able to sit in the drivers cab!


I quite like this characterful train from the 1950's


and am quite surprised to see that there is a Thomas the Tank Engine exhibition, which I go round and watch the to series for a bit, dubbed into Japanese!


We're able to sit in the museum cafe and watch the bullet grains go through, I think we are beginning to understand now that to the Japanese they are just a regular form of transport carrying an average of 430,000 every day and connecting most of the major cities in a super fast, extremely reliable service.



We've learnt one useless fact about them- the trains are numbered with the number 16 carriage always facing towards Tokyo! 

We now have about an hour's journey to Osaka, our tour guide has warned us that traffic could be heavy as the Expo 25 exhibition is being held there.Luckily, it's not too bad at all and we soon see the towering skyscrapers in the distance.
Osaka is a very modern city, known for its futuristic architecture - I must admit, there are parts of it that look a bit like Tracy Island to me! ( for the younger readers of the blog, that's a sci fi series from the 1960's)

We are going up the Umeda Sky Tower, a 175 metre high building built in 1993, an amazing piece of design that has us all reaching for our cameras.








The two thin corridors in the middle of the circle at the top of the building are actually interconnecting escalators that we will be going across shortly!






Several escalators and an outdoor lift(!) whisk us up to the observation floor, from where we spend more time taking lots more photos. The views are amazing though -





and we sit and have a coffee while enjoying the Osaka skyline.
Just as we are thinking of finding our way back to the coach, our guide tells us that the outdoor  iewing platform has now opened after the passing  thunderstorm, so we are able to go up and take yet more photos!





Driving on to our hotel, we are all impressed by the futuristic architecture of Osaka city, as an area that suffered considerably form heavy bombing in WW2, it has been rebuilt in a grid style, with multiple double and triple decked wide roadways snaking between the tall skyscrapers. 



This is just one example taken quickly from the coach, the pillars supporting the road above ours are sunk into the river!
It's another lovely day and we have a great view of the skyline from our bedroom window.




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