- Yellow Productions presents!
A travel guide for visiting Osaka castle in Osaka Japan.
I'm Chris, this is Topher.
This is Yellow Productions.
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But in this video we're gonna be telling you everything
you need to know to visit this castle.
One of the biggest attractions in Japan.
And one of the coolest things
about this castle is it's a huge complex.
I mean the complex is amazing.
It's called Osaka Castle Park.
and it is like really the center of the city.
Osaka was the first capital of Japan
and I mean this is just it's impressive to come here.
The former palace isn't here anymore
but what people typically think of
when they think of the castle,
that building that I started with right there,
with the gold and the green it's one of Japan's best castles
But it's the keep that's essentially the fortification of it
So anyway, I'll take you up into the keep
and I'll show you everything you need to know to get here
and everything around this huge complex.
All right, here we go!
The Osaka Castle Park is very big
and so there's a number of different subway
and train stations that serve it.
In this video we'll be starting
at the Osaka subway Morinomiya Station.
The JR Osaka Loop Line also has a station
with the same name right next to the subway station.
If you take the subway you just go right out this staircase
and you see Osaka Castle right there.
The JR Station is just across the street
from the same intersection super easy.
And visiting Osaka Castle it's more than
just a castle but it's a whole park.
They've got a map here that includes the whole complex.
This is where you come in if you
take my directions on the Morinomiya Station
and there's a whole bunch of things to visit
and do here so let's check them out.
What if you don't want to walk around the castle?
Well you can take the Osaka Castle Road Train
300 yen it'll take you on a little ride
around the castle park grounds.
And Chris so let's say I want
to ride that train, how do I ride it?
Well you would buy your ticket from
a vending machine of course right here.
300 yen.
Well what if you don't want to take a train?
What if you want to take a boat?
Good news for you, they've got boats.
They go 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.
This one is a little more expensive.
1500 yen.
You can pick it up a few places at the castle.
What if you have a sudden craving for food or drink?
The Japanese love convenient stores.
There's an outpost of Lawson Station in the castle grounds
Great food and drinks all cheap in there.
After about a three minute walk in the complex
you'll find a very big castle moat
and then a sign that tells you the castle is that way
and then to head up into the castle
well you got to scale the castle walls.
Lucky for you they've, they've built
a staircase to scale the castle wall
so you don't have to bring your rope ladder or anything.
If you didn't get something to eat at Lawson
and you're hungry well they've often got
food vendors set up selling various Japanese treats.
This one is selling Takoyaki,
which are basically Octopus balls.
It's octopus and dough on the outside.
They're pretty good if you never had them give them a try.
Over here this one is pretty busy let's see what they got.
This one has squid on a stick.
Little more expensive.
600 yen.
Right next to the squid is a stall selling
sliced baked Japanese sweet potatoes in a cup.
400 yen.
One of the things I really like about Osaka Castle
is the immensity of the grounds
and there's also plenty of areas
that you can get up to the castle walls
and pretend you are one of the turrets
looking out at attackers in the moat
or coming up the main walkway.
It's pretty cool this place is immense.
This castle didn't just have one moat it has two.
An outer moat and an inner moat.
At the second moat half of it is currently dry
but the other half of it is currently still wet.
Just across the dry moat there are three more food vendors.
These in the form of food trucks.
First one sells things on sticks.
This one sells soft ice cream
and there's another food truck selling Takoyaki.
You will find this quite a bit and they are very friendly.
Hi, Takoyaki!
- Takoyaki! - Thank you!
And now you'll find yourself at the main bridge entrance
across the dry moat but not so fast
there is a couple more things to see on this side.
There's the martial arts training hall right here.
There's another food vendor.
This one's more of the permanent variety.
And in case you're wondering,
I did finally succumb to one of the
food vendors for the Imagowayaki.
It's essentially a custard filled cake.
It's comes in red bean and some other varieties.
150 yen.
That's one of my favorite desserts in Japan.
Typically sold at festivals I love the custard taste
and they're delicious when they're hot
and fresh right off the grill.
Once you've finished with your imagowayaki
or other food there's a small shrine
right back here built in the 1800s.
If you're in a rush you can skip it
but if you've got some time, check it out.
As you head up the bridge you will
pass through the Sakuramon Gate.
This gate is named Cherry Blossom Gate likely after
the row of cherry blossoms planted in front of it.
If you want to know how I know that,
there's lots of great English signage around this complex.
This sign tells you about the really
huge stones that were used right in front of the gate.
These stones really are quite huge.
If you take a look at it this
whole piece right here is one big stone.
That's probably really difficult to bring here.
As you pass those huge stones, the main tower is in view
but not so fast there's one more attraction.
This newly renovated Miraiza building.
And I think it's kind of hilarious that the entrance sign
lets you know that pictures are OK inside.
The first floor is home to shops and restaurants
but I think the coolest shop is this one right here
Shinobiya it has ninja samurai goods specialty store.
You can buy a full suit of samurai armor
just south of two million yen.
They've even got some ninja games you can play for the kids.
And if you need an ATM you can also find one right here
7-11 ATM which accepts cards from almost any country.
Second floor is home to a say sit down restaurant,
the Crossfield Restaurant and their tea lounge.
A nice refined comfortable seating area.
And the third floor is home to restaurants
that's only open at dinner time after 5:00 p.m.,
but I do love the bonsai trees.
I also should point out if you're looking
for clean restrooms in this building
they are the cleanest in the whole castle complex.
Back out in front of that shopping mall
this is the site of the former palace of the castle
no longer here but the main tower still is.
This is the liveliest area of the complex.
If you didn't have two million yen
for that samurai outfit inside,
you can get your picture taken outside for free.
You can just wear it you'll also find performers out here.
This is just an exciting place to be.
(crowd cheering)
Okay well now that we're finally here
at the main tower it's time to go in.
I just want to point out a couple things.
First, this tower is built in 1931.
The first tower was built in the 1500s,
it burned down in a war.
The second tower was built in the 1600s.
It burned down by lightning strike.
And this one was rebuilt with
donations by the citizens of Osaka.
But before we can go in we need to
buy an admission ticket there is a line over here.
And of course, how do we buy a ticket?
The way we buy a lot of things in Japan,
we buy the admission ticket from a vending machine.
600 yen and it's funny, you're watching my video
so you don't even need to know this.
But they've got this thing that tells you
ticket machine here if you have
another pass you can pick it up here
and then just go through the entrance gate.
Tickets are pretty easy.
It's in English.
Just push the button that says 600 yen
and then you can put your money in here
and you'll get a ticket and some change.
As you come inside you can pick up
a brochure about the castle in various languages.
I will take English.
My Japanese is not so good.
As you approach the front entrance
to the keep you'll find two lines.
On the left there's a line to take the elevator
and on the right well there's no line to go up the stairs.
If you can go up the stairs, take the stairs.
It is about eight floors and doesn't take that long.
The elevator only gets you up halfway anyway.
You still have to take some stairs up
and that elevator line is pretty long.
As you make your way up there's various museum type exhibits
They don't really let you do video
or pictures in most of them so I'll just see you at the top
which I think is really the main thing to see here
and that is the top observatory of the keep.
This level is open air but fenced in
but what I do really like is there's a break in the fence
in the middle so you can take some clear pictures
without having a fence in the middle of your pictures.
Japanese really love their pictures
and so they made it so you can
get some nice pictures of Osaka.
From here you can see all the immensity that is Osaka
and they've even got little signs that will tell you
what the things in the distance are.
In addition to the view, there's also a little
but very busy gift shop up here.
If you don't find anything you want at this gift shop
there's a larger gift shop down at the
main entrance level of the keep.
Once you're done visiting the main tower
and you want to go about your travels,
there's plenty of signs that will tell you
how to get back to the train stations.
I would say go to a train station
that you haven't been to yet because
then you can see more of the complex.
If you go to the JR Osaka-jo Kohen Station
then you can stop by the Jo-Terrace Osaka
place for food probably more shops there too.
That's where I'm heading because I am hungry.
And I think those shops are probably gonna be
the restaurants are probably a little cheaper
than the ones that were up here
right out front of the castle those were mighty expensive.
Well thanks for watching.
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All right, bye-bye!