So today was a long, but fun day. This morning I rode the trains down to Osaka to see Becky.
Her lovely room the first night...
Her view out the window...
Dramatic lighting...
So we decided that our top priority in Osaka was seeing Osaka Castle. We took the JR loop over to Osaka Castle Park and walked to the main tower. There are no words to decribe how big and amazing this castle was! It dwarfed Nijo and even the castles I saw in Germany like Neuschwanstein! It was a massive building, over eight stories, and to get to it, you had to pass moat after moat and courtyard after courtyard. It was truly impressive! 
It was a rather hot, bright day, and I forgot my hat. Thankfully, I had my parasol which saved me from a lot of sunburn...
That's me... I felt so tiny!
Becky in the shadow of Osaka-jo.
... contemplating time travel...
A really cool feature of the museum was a gallery of 3D shadowboxes that had holograms in them. You watched them in order and it told the story of the rulers who had lived in Osaka-jo. Very neat.
Our view from the top balcony of Osaka-jo.
They kinda had us caged in, but we took pretty good pictures anyway...
One thing that struck me as surreal, was the clash of present and past, traditional and modern.
You feel transported back in time, but that bubble only goes so far. Outside the bubble, you can see modern society looking in. We kept wondering what this same view would look like 500 years ago...
This is a martial arts school on the Osaka-jo grounds...
The doors to the castle were so thick!
A statue in a little park just outside Osaka Castle. We sat and caught our breath there, trying to decide where to go next...
So we ended up at Tenmangu Shrine.
The mikos, shrine maidens, were very kind.
The Madagascar penguins and crew sound funny in Japanese...
Afterwards I took Becky back to J Hoppers and came home. It's been a long day. I'm going to sign off. Take care everyone!
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