http://youtube.com/watch?v=-YM64JrPlv4
Osaka Castle Osaka Castle is one of the two best castles the Kansai area. (Himeji Castle is the other). Osaka Castle (大坂城・大阪城, Ōsaka-jō?) is a Japanese castle in Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan. Originally called Ozakajo, it is one of Japan's most famous castles, and played a major role in the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century of the Azuchi-Momoyama period.
Japanese castles, like most things, observe the law of diminishing returns. The first castle you visit will entertain you for hours. By the third, you are ready to leave after 15 minutes. Osaka Jo is a big castle with a large garden. Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered up the castle back in 1583. Open 9 am - 4.30 pm. Closed Dec 28 - Jan1. Adult admission 600 yen. The castle was refurbished recently., and frankly looks a lot better than it did before. The garden has apricot blossoms in February and cherry blossoms (and drunken salarymen) in April. It can be romantic at night, but beware if you start getting carried away with the romance. The park is populated with a bunch of very lonely middle aged men who enjoy spying on couples. Recently the park has become home to a few hundred homeless people who live in small blue trap tent-houses. Lovely.
The castle is situated on a plot of land roughly one kilometer square. It is built on two raised platforms of landfill supported by sheer walls of cut rock, each overlooking a moat. The central castle building is five stories on the outside and eight stories on the inside, and built atop a tall stone foundation to protect its occupants from sword-bearing attackers.
The castle is open to the public, and is easily accessible from Osakajo Koen Station on the JR Osaka Loop Line. It is a popular spot during festival seasons, and especially during the cherry blossom bloom, when the sprawling castle grounds are covered with food vendors and taiko drummers.
Directions: Take the Osaka Loop Line to the Osaka Jo Koen station, and walk east. OR Take the Chuo subway line and get off at the Tanimachi 4 chome station.
The grounds also house a museum, the large indoor arena Osaka-jo Hall, and the Toyokuni Shrine dedicated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Osaka Castle History
Ōte-mon Gate1583: Toyotomi Hideyoshi commenced construction on the site of the Ikkō-ikki temple of Ishiyama Hongan-ji. The basic plan was modeled after Azuchi Castle, the headquarters of Oda Nobunaga. Toyotomi wanted to build a castle that mirrored Oda's, but surpassed it in every way: the plan featured a five-story main tower, with three extra stories underground, and gold leaf on the sides of the tower to impress visitors. 1585: Inner donjon completed. Toyotomi continued to extend and expand the castle, making it more and more formidable to attackers. 1598: Construction completed. Hideyoshi died. Osaka Castle passed to his son, Toyotomi Hideyori. 1600: Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated Hideyori's armies at the Battle of Sekigahara, and started his own bakufu in Edo. 1614: Tokugawa attacked Hideyori in the winter, starting the Siege of Osaka. Although the Toyotomi forces were outnumbered approximately 2 to 1, they managed to fight off Tokugawa's 200,000-man army and protect the castle's outer walls. However, Tokugawa attempted to muzzle Toyotomi by filling up the castle's outer moat, rendering it largely defenseless. 1615: During the summer, Hideyori began to dig the outer moat once more. Tokugawa, in outrage, sent his armies to Osaka Castle again, and routed the Toyotomi men inside the outer walls on June 4. Osakajo fell to Tokugawa, and the Toyotomi clan perished.
This stone marks the place where Toyotomi Hideyori and his mother, Yodo-dono, committed suicide after the fall of Osaka Castle.1620: The new heir to the shogunate, Tokugawa Hidetada, began to reconstruct and rearm Osaka Castle. He built a new elevated main tower, five stories on the outside and eight stories on the inside, and assigned the task of constructing new walls to individual samurai clans. The walls built in the 1620s still stand today, and are made out of interlocked granite boulders with no mortar whatsoever: they are held together solely by each other. Many of the stones were brought from rock quarries in the Seto Inland Sea, and bear inscribed crests of the various families who laid them into the walls.
1665: Lightning strikes burned down the main tower.
1843: After decades of neglect, the castle got much-needed repairs when the bakufu collected money from the people of the region to rebuild several of the turrets.
1868: Much of the castle was burned in the civil conflicts surrounding the Meiji Restoration. Under the Meiji government, Osaka Castle was converted to a barracks for Japan's rapidly-expanding Western-style military.
1928: The main tower was restored after the mayor of Osaka concluded a highly successful fund-raising drive.
1945: Bombing raids on Osaka damaged the reconstructed main tower.
1995: Osaka's government approved yet another restoration project, with the intent of restoring the main tower to its Edo-era splendor.
1997: Restoration was completed. The castle is a concrete reproduction (including elevators) of the original; the inside does not resemble a Japanese castle at all.
Osaka Business Park - OBP Nice looking new office buildings near Osaka Castle. Nearby is the International Market Place, IMP, offering stuff to buy from around the world. Take the JR loop line to Osaka-jo station, walk west and then over the bridge. Or take the Nagahori Tsurumiryokuchi subway line to the Osaka Business Park station. The Twin Towers have an observation platform on the 38th floor, open 11 am - 8.30 pm. 500 yen for adults, 300 for kids. Call IMP 06-6945-1313.