Well today's plan was originally to visit a couple of the sights here in Kyoto. Unfortunately, the weather decided to throw a spanner in the works and I woke up to a light drizzle. Ended up deciding to swap around the plans for today and tomorrow and head over to Osaka today instead.
Osaka is just under 30 minutes from Kyoto if you get one of the "rapid" services. I decided to get a couple more trains after to work my way to the southern end of the city where the shops are and then head north on foot and seeing what I could find on the way. Unfortunately, the rain got heavier and heavier so I decided to head into a Starbucks for a coffee and the dry off a bit. Thankfully it wasn't too busy so the staff weren't in too much of a bother to rush people out. Sitting in a nice comfy armchair by the window wasn't really a wise move in the end since watching the rain get heaver still just made leaving harder and harder. Eventually, I decided it really was time to move as the rain looked to be easing off. On getting outside and starting to head up north again though the rain really wasn't nice to walk through (strange for someone who normally likes rain and hasn't seen much of it in a few months on account of the secret location being a bit dry) and so I got the subway back up to Osaka station to head to the Umeda Sky Building.
Half the challenge in getting there is the fact that Osaka station is yet another huge JR structure (they actually call it Osaka Station City!) and there is little signage for the place. In the end I located an information desk who were able to point me in the right direction. The Umeda Sky Building consists of 2 towers that are connected about half way up (separate ground level entrances) and then have a ring at the very top between the 2 towers (although you can't use it to get from one tower to the other). From the 3rd floor of one of the towers there is a glass-walled elevator that takes you up 140 metres to the 35th floor where you can purchase a ticket to go up to the 39th floor observation level (this is the ring between the 2 towers). There is also an open-air 40th floor observation level on top. The 39th floor is some 173 metres up.
For some reason, they call it the Floating Garden Observatory. This name is a bit strange as there's no garden, and there's nothing floating! Sadly, I didn't have the best city views today due to the low cloud and rain, although the rain did start to ease just before sunset (not there was much of a sunset tonight) and so I was able to brave the open-air level with the camera to get some good clear dusk photos. I had also taken some from the inside level, but they don't always work that well due to shooting through the windows, which were also covered in rain.
The whole Floating Garden Observatory, while good for the city views, was a little too couple-y for my liking! There were a lot of "lovey-dovey" things like the photo opportunity involved standing in a big heart, there were raised seats looking south that were designed for 2 people, and you can also get heart-shaped padlocks and go outside and lock them onto a wall where there is also a chair for 2 people behind another heart for taking photos.
One of the more bizarre parts of the Umeda Sky Building at the moment is that there was also a German Christmas market in the square between the 2 buildings, albeit mostly staffed by Japanese people with just a couple of (I assume) Germans around in a couple of the stalls! I'm still trying to work out the Japanese obsession with Christmas! I may have a rant about it tomorrow if I get bored!
Anyway, things have just about dried out now, so hopefully the weather will decide to do the same for tomorrow so I can get out and about in Kyoto!