Tsutenkaku, the Symbol of the Osaka Heart

Hello, this is Momomi.

During the three-day weekend this month, my best friend and her husband came to visit me in Osaka.
They are S-chan and Mr. K, who I spent time with during the Nagoya Women's Marathon.

When I asked them where they wanted to go,
“We want to go to Tsutenkaku, and then eat kushikatsu in Shinsekai,”
was their very quintessentially Osaka response.
Since they were here, I decided to go to Tsutenkaku for the first time myself!!
I have lived in Osaka for 15 years, but I haven't really been to the Minami area lately.
Recently, I only passed through the Namba area during the Osaka Marathon...
Or transferred trains at Namba to get to KIX...
That was about it.

I had thought about trying to visit Tsutenkaku once before, but I was intimidated by the huge line and gave up.
This time, I had“Leave all the arrangements to me”the reliable Mr. K with us. He made reservations in advance.
On the day, I just guided them to the bottom of Tsutenkaku and didn't do anything else.

Since our reservation was for 10:00 AM on Sunday, we arrived at Tsutenkaku a little before our time, wandering around Shinsekai and taking photos.
Perhaps because it was early, there was no line and it was empty, so we were able to get to the entrance right away. (I'm really grateful he made the reservation).
I had imagined that we would just hop on an elevator and zip to the top, but that wasn't the case.
There were souvenir shops,we had totake commemorative photos,andcheck the photos we took...while passing through areas that would surely be a huge bottleneck if it were crowded, we gradually made our way up to the5th floor (87.5m above ground).

The 5th floor is named theGolden Observatory,and it was a dazzling observatory that could rivalToyotomi Hideyoshi's Golden Tea Room.There, the familiar
“Billiken-san”and the“Billiken Seven Lucky Gods”were enshrined. If you go up the stairs to the R5 floor, it is the
rooftop observatory (94.5m above ground).The floor is see-through, and although it was hot, the breeze was pleasant, and it felt amazing because there was nothing to block the view.As S-chan and I were running around excitedly while circling it, Mr. K started acting strange.He was avoiding walking on the see-through parts.
Even when we girls went out onto the

protruding observatory
(where the tip is see-through and you can see the ground through the walkway), he didn't come over, just saying,“I'll take your picture!”

He's fine with things like airplanes, but it seems he's not good with places where you can see through to the ground below. Yet, he was the one who said he wanted to go to Tsutenkaku.
He really is an interesting person.

Having enjoyed the high altitude, we decided to head back to the ground.
The elevator down was on the 4th floor, so when we went down the stairs to the 4th floor, for some reason there were sparkling disco balls, and it was an overly flashy observatory, aptly named theLight Observatory.And there was a line waiting for the elevator.
When we finally got down to the 3rd floor, what awaited us next were fun photo spots.
Dioramas, Glico, Pocky, face-in-hole panels, Kinnikuman,and so on.We fully enjoyed ourselves and had fun taking lots of pictures.

I basically like traveling alone, but at times like this, I feel it's really fun to be with friends who understand you.

After we had our fill of fun, the last thing to welcome us was a souvenir shop calledTsutenkaku Wakuwaku Land.They also sold souvenirs of Kyoro-chan and the Chicken Ramen chick.
And there was a great photo spot here too, where I got some good pictures of the KS couple.

We spent about an hour and a half fully enjoying Tsutenkaku.
It was the middle of a three-day weekend, but since it was early, I think we were able to move around smoothly. It might be a little emptier on weekdays.
Next time, I definitely want to try theTOWER SLIDER.The TOWER SLIDER is a slide-like attraction that lets you slide down from 22 meters above ground to the first basement floor in about 10 seconds.

Tsutenkaku is the symbol of the Osaka heart, the spirit of Naniwa.
It's a super good,wonderfulTsutenkaku.

Thank you for reading until the end.