Here's my foray into the joint contest of 
Let me start off by saying, I LOVE JAPAN!!! I was fortunate enough to get some time to go visit, 7 days and 4 cities in December. Boy, let me tell ya that's not enough time. There's just way too much to see and do! Ok enough about that.
First up is Osaka! Of course, the gem of the city is our first stop, Osaka Castle.
I love visiting historical places, seeing the artistic styles and craftsmanship. I like trying to imagine what it must have been like back then, what the culture would have been like. Anyways, the castle grounds is pretty big but walk-able and open to visitors without having to register. Standing in the shadow of this castle, even knowing it was rebuilt, felt awesome!
Around the castle's premises is a big moat, well a few moats, it's not one gigantic ring of water around the castle. Parts of the moat is now dry, some parts wide and long enough for boat rides while the rest is home to many different species of birds, like this guy (I think it's a duck):
Moving on via train and walking, we saw a variety of shrines and temples but I only got to explore 2 due to time constraints. Here's an image of the dog shrine near Osaka Castle:
and here's one of Tenmangu Shrine:
There so much culture/history that i wanted to see, but I lost the vote, my kids wanted to check out the Osaka Aquarium because the whale shark is one of their favorite animals. So here it is:
Just kidding, that's just the huge sculpture "swimming" up the side of the Osaka Aquarium. It lights up at night, it's really quite pretty. Here a close up of one of the two whale sharks:
Now within the same plaza area as the Osaka Aquarium is a boat ride tourist attraction. A replica of the Santa Maria (the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus to sail to North America). Due to time constraints we didn't go, plus a couple of us get sea sick. Here's a snap:
As it was getting dark and noticeably colder we skipped the huge ferris wheel directly across the plaza from the aquarium.
Plus we had one more stop, Dotonburi. I was really looking forward to the neon signs and sculptured signage while my family wanted to shop. Anyways, it was a lot to see and surprisingly crowded, not crazy crowded but enough to know not to setup a tripod. As a beer lover, I had to take this image:
The yellow neon actually starts from the bottom and rises like filling a glass with beer! I think it's about 4 stories high, so cool! The signage of some of these shops are amazing! Then you get this:
A ferris...oval? Yup this adorns the Don Quijote building. Don Quijote is a shop that sells almost everything, I think, and occupies the whole building.
It was at this point, we all looked at each other and knowingly realized that we only had enough energy to get back to the room. Surprisingly, although we knew we missed out on some experiences, we were completely satisfied with what we did experience.
If you wanna see more, please follow me. I still have Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo to document this trip.
Comments & Critiques are always welcome. As are upvotes and resteems, if you like what you see.
Thanks for viewing and best wishes,
Ray
PS. If you wanna see my other 'works', you can find them here:
http://rayshiuimages.com
http://newbiephoto.net
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/ray-shiu.html