Central Station Osaka

Hotel Granvia Osaka is right at Central Station of Osaka. There are so many trains lines that the map looks like colourful spaghetti spat on paper. The number of people moving about is like peak hour in Raffles Station except it is all day long. I shudder to think when our population reach 6 millions.

I am on the 24th floor and have a paranomic view of the city. Osaka is quite historical. The buildings are still low and gray. The skyscapers are fewer than Tokyo. I can see the hilly outline at the far end through the dust and smog. This hotel is quite interesting. It occupies top 5 floors of the building. Below the hotel are 3 levels of resturants and department store Daimaru.

On the way from the airport, we past by industrial areas and the factories are rusting and had seen better days. Traffic is actually worst than Tokyo even though the city is much smaller. Probably cost of owning a car is lower here.

Food wise, the resturants here are specialized. Unlike Singapore, a Japanese resturant will have noodles with sushi, sashmi, fried chicken or yakitori in the menu, here if it is tonkatsu, there will be like 10 different tonkatsu. Tempura resturants only tempura in many variant but still tempura. I like varieties so I have to come many times to Osaka to try the different food. There is even a tofu resturant that offer fried tofu, boiled tofu, grilled tofu and more tofu. Nothing else but tofu!