I left off Adventures In Kansai P3 with Osaka Castle. This installment I'll take you to two observation decks a few minutes south by train, Tsutenkaku Tower and Abeno Harukas.
After Osaka Castle I headed over to Dotonburi for an early sushi lunch, then hopped on the train for Tsutenkaku Tower a few stops away. The towers sits amongst some interesting, cartoonish shops and restaurants, an area known as Ebisu Higashi.
They fit right in with Osaka's bombastic style compared to Tokyo's much more reserved atmosphere. When you go to Osaka expect to party and have fun.
This area is somewhere I really want to go back to some day if only to eat at Yokozuna Tsutenkaku , meals fit for a Sumo Yokozuna!
From Yokozuna you can see the tower just down the street.
Looking at the photo above, on the right infront of the restaurant in the foreground there is a brownish statue. It's name is Billiken. I found this statue in quite a few places here, including up in Tsutenkaku tower. Here is the twist, Billiken is a good luck god in Osaka, but it was a character literally dreamt up by a woman in Kansas, Missouri named Florence Pretz. It's a very strange story and you can read about it here if you like.
Arriving at the tower it kinda looked like a space ship from below. Totally fitting in with Osaka's funky style. The tower was originally constructed in 1912 modeled after the Eiffel Tower. A fire in 1943 damaged it so it was torn down for metal needed for WWII. In 1953 it was rebuilt, but in the current, different style.
Admission into the tower is 900円. Going in you enter in B1 and are taken through by shops & attractions to buy goods and see another tower attraction, the giant slide.
There is a monitor so you can see people enter the slide several floors above, then exit in front of you.
I counted 8 seconds from the time someone entered until they slid by me.
I was only interested in the views the tower had to offer though so up I went.
Exiting the elevator facing East.
North East, Osaka Castle is hidden behind some of the buildings.
East is Abeno Harukas.
The sprawl of South.
West.
North.
So much city to explore!
A last look inside of the tower and I was off to the next observation deck down the road.
Tsutenkaku Tower has much more to offer than what I wrote about including a cafe and restaurant. I'll like to the tower's website at the end of this post.
Moving on, one last look back before going to the station for Abeno Harukas.
Abeno is 1 stop away from Tsutenkaku on the Midosuji Line. It's the tallest building in Japan at 300 meters high or just shy of 1000 feet.
A large complex full of shopping, restaurants, an events center, museum, office space, a hotel & of course observation decks. There are actually two decks, the free deck is on the 16th floor, while the fee deck is on the 58-60th floors. The fee to go up to the 58-60th floors is about $10. I opted to just check out the 16th floor deck though and it was quite nice.
The views from this deck are only to the north & east, but still quite nice.
I actually took a bit of rest here. The scenery was so nice and tranquil. The design of the rooftop was very inviting so I rested my feet and sipped on some much needed Pocari Sweat to prepare for my big night over in Dotonburi!
After about 20 minutes I headed back down to the ground, took a few more pictures and then I was off to a Mexican food dinner and an awesome night along the river.
The next installment of Adventures In Kansai will be all about Dotonburi. I promise you won't be let down by that post. Here's a peek.
Further information on both towers can be found below.
Tsutentaku Tower website is here: https://www.tsutenkaku.co.jp/
Abeno Harukas website is here: https://www.abenoharukas-300.jp/en/observatory/index.html
Thanks for reading!
