The Osaka castle ume garden has 880 trees. It is only 4 stations away with the loop line from Umeda station (the main railway station in Osaka). You must get out at Osakajokoen station. After that you have around 20 minutes walk through the castle park to reach the ume garden (there are many maps on the way so you will not get lost).

Judging by what we saw last weekend the full blossom this year will happen most probably during the first week of March (but considering the many different varieties present in the garden it is really difficult to predict).

Here is a view of part of the garden from above:

There were crowds but it was not overcrowded as sometime happens with such events:

And here are the photos from the ume trees themselves:

There was and ume trees market. You could actually buy the trees on the photos bellow. They were selling and many ume bonsai trees (I will make a separate post for them).

The Osaka castle itself in background:

I hope we can make it next week again to the castle so I can take photos from the full blossom :)

The blossom was full or almost full (on some places you can see partially blooming trees).

We started again from Sakuranomiya station and went all the way to Tenma-bashi bridge (the distance is at least several kilometers). The cherry trees were continuing even further but we had to go back home.

Here is selection of some of the best photos.

I would like to start with one from the area around Kawasaki bridge (this is a small pedestrian bridge just before the big Tenma-bashi).  I think you get a good idea for the sakura roof under which we were walking:

Just two more photos with the white sakura roof above our heads:

On the last photo to the right you can see some of the colorful kiosks which are everywhere. They sell usually bear and all kinds of yakiniku (grilled meat). Most often – yakitori (grilled chiken), buta (pig) and ika (squid). Be careful with the prices though. A small can of bear will cost you usually two or three times more if you buy it from these kiosks (500 yen) than in a ordinary shop. Speaking for the devil… here is a picture of yakiniku (most probably yakitori):

Now back to sakura.

A very beautiful “pinku” sakura tree next to OPA Towers (the bamboo structure is here just to help model it in the desired form):

Okawa river:

Kawasaki bridge (if you look carefully you can see the Osaka castle to the right but even if you can not see it – do not worry – a zoomed version of it is incoming :))

Here comes and the Osaka castle (I think you can easily go all the way to it starting from Sakuranomiya station if you have around 1-2 spare hours). By the way – medieval castle, sakura trees and railways bridges – it definitely must be Japan:

The dawn was coming over Tenma-bashi area.

It is interesting that the darker was getting the more people were coming especially around the drinking/eating kiosks.

The last photos are from Tenma-bashi bridge area by night. This is the furthest point we reached even though the sakura trees were continuing alongside the Okawa river for much further:

Last but not least the Sakuranomiya bridge (apparently violet is one of the main fashion colors in Japan this year):

As I mentioned the blossom of the trees was almost full. Actually in some areas (apparently the more shadowy one) the trees were in rather early stages of blossoming. So I think that there is at least one more week of sakura in front of us (or at least in Kansai area).

The easiest way to reach it is by the loop line (it is only 3 stations away from Umeda – the main Osaka station). The name of the station is the same as the Park – Sakuranomiya staion. The park itself is situated alongside the Ōkawa river and it is claimed to have 4200 cherry trees!

It wasn’t full sakura yet but almost all the trees had at least some flowers on them and you could see here and there clusters of completely blossoming cherry trees.

This is the view from Genpachi Bridge（源八橋)  – immediately next to the GR station (BTW if you need an elevator you must take the Sakuranomiya station exit which is away from the river/bridge).

Here are the rest of the pictures (they were all taken from the site of the OPA Tower – a modern complex of several big towers resembling a little bit a smaller version of Roppongi hill in Tokyo (here is my Christmas visit there):

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As you can see some of the trees were completely covered in the white petals. The river was also busy with entertainment ships. There were and a few hanami (“flower viewing”) already – people sitting or standing around big, blue mats and eating, drinking and chattering. But the allays overall looked like deserted in comparison with the real sakura time.

The next two photos are from the Sakuranomiya bridge (also known as “Ginbashi – “銀橋“) may be around half a kilometer (or slightly more) away from the GR station (direction Osaka castle):

On the second picture to the right you can see the OPA Towers.

It was getting late so the last of the pictures are on the sunset background:

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Next weekend we are going again to Sakuranomiya Park. So expect many more photos from the center of Osaka sakura :)

First – this is a view toward the Zoo from the Tennoji Koen (the picture was taken just in front of the Osaka Art museum – the second picture):

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The main entrance (I think the white bear on the photo is kind of celebrity in the Zoo):

We are already inside the zoo:

Actually the Zoo is situated on both sites of this road leading toward/from the Osaka Art Museum. As to the family part of the Tennoji Zoo the Disney composition sums a good part of it (colorful – isn’t it?:)):

Now a short pause to present you some of the Zoo inhabitants (the chimpanzees were particularly interesting – non stop arguing for something and quite noisy).

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Of course you cannot have a real Japanese Zoo without Anpanman and all of the rest of the heroes (the white bear from the entrance was also here – it definitely must be one of the Zoo’s main mascots):

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Apparently the Tennoji Zoo is famous for its artificial savanna. The idea is that the animals are situated in such a way that it looks like they are in their natural habitat and there are no barriers between them. When we reached the savanna part it was too late (almost 16:30) so we had to hurry but still here are a few photos from it (I think they succeeded with the imitation of savanna quite well but you decide on your own):

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Here is another part of the Zoo – the area around the elephants. It looks more like a jungle (than a Savanna) to me so I grouped the photos separately:

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Now this is an interesting one (you may want to click on the image to enlarge it):

I really had to touch this thing to confirm that it is not real (it was from something like concrete). The Tennoji Zoo people definitely like to craft the details!

And again – if you have any doubts you are in a Japanese Zoo – you will be reminded :) :

At 5:00 p.m. everything is over and you must go (usually toward Tennoji station unless you are Osaka-jin). But we’ll be back that’s more than sure – still too much left to bee seen from both Tennoji Park and Zoo.

Just one last photo for goodbye (taken from the road above the Zoo):

I always thought it must be a boring one because it is relatively small (only 103 meters) and it is all gray (compare it with the red and white Tokyo tower). What I discovered though is that Tsutenkaku has its own charm especially if you look at it from the artificial savanna of Tennoji Zoo. Actually it was looking like the last building standing in a post-apocalyptic world (semi-submerged in the jungle):

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It reminded me also of  “Time Machine” of Herbert Wells – the giant towers of the far, far future. Eloi or Morlocks are hiding in this one? :) We shall learn if the zoom we use:

Not quite there yet. But it is really difficult to clearly see through the canopy of the forest:

Finally! It looks like there are humans after all (even though the Eloi or Morlocks theory was way more interesting). Just one final zoom to be absolutely sure:

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Yes, definitely humans and it looks like they are staring down at us. The big Hitachi commercial also brings us back to the Nihon world.

And just one final photo (my favorite of this series) – the branches touch the tower (may be better for a sleeping beauty theme):

I must confess though that this post was a warm up for the Tennoji Zoo one (as I mentioned all the pictures were taken from there). The point is that the photos are so many and the themes within them so different that it will be a challenge to sort them in a single coherent story. But this is after all our life in Japan – variety to its extreme (and a lot, a lot of Udon):)!

The Park is quite big so if you want to see everything I advice you to go at least before lunch (the last admittance is at 16:30). We were there around 13:30 and we didn’t have at all time for the traditional  Japanese part (the Zoo was much bigger than we expected).

The easiest way to reach Tennoji Park (if you are coming from Umeda station) is Osaka JR loop line. It almost doesn’t matter in which direction you will take the loop line train – the difference is only 1 or 2 stations.

Already at the entrance there was a nice bonsai garden:

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And just in case you doubt there is a Zoo near by:

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And my favorite one – the dancing hippopotamus:

This is a general view from the first (modern) part of the Park:

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The Cabbage (Kale) Traditional Japanese Garden

By far the biggest attraction of this part of Tennoji koen was the cabbage traditional Japanese garden. To be precise the plant is actually kale (or a borecole). I learned that it originates from the Mediterranean but it was the Japanese people who first started to use it for decorative purposes and created the present ornamental variants (it was later re-introduced to the West as decorative flower (here is the article I took the information form)).   It seems that the low temperature transforms its green pigment into the nice colors you can see on the pictures (may be and that is why they use it for the winter Japanese decoration – kadomatsu):

Here are the rest of the pictures from the kale garden:

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Tomorrow I will continue with the Zoo which turned out to be more fun than we expected :)