Views and Vitreous China

Yesterday the Divine Ms M and I were totally castle-ed, shrine-ed and temple-ed out, a state I never would have thought possible before. Instead we found ourselves at the Umeda Sky Building, also known as the Floating Garden, which the Lonely Planet describes as 'a space age version of Paris' Arc de Triomphe'. This is a pretty good explanation of the structure which stands 173 metres high and has the most spectacular view of the Osaka area from inside the viewing deck, up on the open roof Skywalk and, as we found out later that night, the bar.

We visited the Sky Building twice that day, once fairly early in the morn, to admire the aspect of the city, and then just on sunset we returned to see twinkle of lights reach out to the mountains on the horizon. There are mountains in all direction from the top. It appears that Osaka is ringed by hills and is almost perfectly flat until it reaches their feet. My theory is that it is in the middle of an enormous extinct volcanic crater, but I have yet to research to determine if this is correct.

Between our two visits to the Sky Building we filled our day with the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, which holds a fascinating display of 11th - 13th century Japanese and Korean pottery, outlining the use of a wide selection of glazes and techniques that was very interesting. We accidentally over stayed closing time at the museum and after the guard had very politely kicked us out, we returned to the view at the Skywalk and the viewing deck, until we were once again very politely booted out of those too, so we found the bar, and cocktails.