Our initial plans for Day 05 of this trip included an early morning visit to Arashiyama to see the bamboo forest before the inevitable crowds come in, followed by a return back to Kyoto Station to move onto Osaka for the highlights of Day 05. The wife suggested though that we move Arashiyama to Day 06 instead to optimise our movement around, since we’d be largely staying in Kyoto city that day. I agreed – and unfortunatelu in so doing, completely forgot that I’d intentionally placed Arashiyama on Day 05 early morning – because I’d already reserved Day 06 morning for a similar early morning visit to Fushimi Inari. Argh. I only realised this oversight when we were well on our way to Osaka.
That out of the way, we still headed out extra early this morning to Osaka Station for a leisure breakfast first at Deli Cafe where I could continue editing and improving this blog’s Day 04 posts. The first stop for Day 05 was Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, which only opens at 10AM. Pro-tip: get admission tickets to the Aquarium online so that you don’t have to queue to buy tickets. You’ll get QR-codes for admission and a special queue, making getting into the Aquarium a breeze.
The day itself was pretty busy at the Aquarium. Despite us visiting the Aquarium from opening hour, there was what seemed like an entire school of kindergarten children, and several classes of Junior High students too, all on school excursions. I was pretty impressed with Osaka Aquarium during our 2010 visit, but oddly, after having seen other aquariums around the world since then, I thought the place this time was more… ordinary. The center-piece was still the main marine tank where the visitor’s path goes round, and there are numerous spots where you can sit down and just chill. There was also a small school of really friendly dolphins, including one particular who was alert to visitors watching from behind the tank’s reinforced glass windows, and happily did somersaults, much to the crowd’s delight. But I didn’t see the variety of smaller tanks housing more tropical specimens that are in e.g. S.E.A. Aquarium.
Still, the inclusion of a re-visit to Osaka Aquarium was really intended for the kids, and not adults. And both enjoyed the 1.5 hours we spent here – before heading for lunch at the Tempozan Marketplace just next door.
Continued in the next post!