Osaka

We stayed in Osaka the day after the Sumo tournament and went sightseeing the whole day. I was very surprised to realize that Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, second only to Tokyo. The city has a population of about 2.7 million which is double the size of Hiroshima (about 1.2 million people live here). Hiroshima itself seams huge to me since my home town of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico only has around 100, 000 inhabitants. Osaka had so many transportation options, subways, bullet trains, taxis, even the train station seemed like a little city itself!!! Thankfully Orlando figured out where to go, because I had no idea!!! I could have ended up in Tokyo for all I know!!
Our first Stop was the Umeda Sky building. It consists of two 40-story towers that connect at the top, with bridges and an escalator crossing the wide space in the center. Here we are in front of the building:

If you think I went up there then you have not been reading this blog!!!! Orlando went up and took some cool pictures of Osaka:

I stayed nice and safe on the ground and took some artsy pictures of the building:

The first day of Spring was officially March 21st!!! It is a National Holiday in Japan, but off course we had to go to work!!! I prefer working that day than having to come to work on Saturday...again?!?!?!?!
Afterwards we went to the Osaka Castle which was originally built in 1598. Don't we look cute?

Here we are in the castle's entrance:

I actually went to the top of the castle and here are the pictures to prove it.

How can there be a castle without a garden? NEVER!!!!

The castle had a really interesting exhibition of old Japanese military armor. I wonder who could maintain their balance and run around in this spiffy outfit:
After navigating trough the complete subway system we made it to the Kaiyukan aquarium,one of the world's largest. Go to:
http://www.kaiyukan.com/eng/
for more information on the aquarium. As you can see our friends Nuria and David where with us the whole weekend. I think the picture below explains how they where able to survive being with us 48 hours straight. Good Humor!!!!

In general the aquarium was pretty normal except for the various exhibit's quirky picture illustrations. Like everything here there has to be some type of cute cartoon to explain everything. This picture is the one for the sea otter exhibit. How does a leave on top of a chubby guy's head mean sea otter? It will remain on of life's great mysteries.
The next picture was used for the penguin exhibit:
This picture represents the largest tank in this aquarium which is 30 feet deep, and has 5,400 tons of water. Apparently if there is a big shark behind you all you have to do is ride the sting ray in order to get away.

Here is some video from the huge water tank:

You can see a whale shark in this video, which is 14 feet in length and weights about 1,800 pounds.