The day had come. Where we’d say goodbye to the place my friends and I had affectionately referred to as ‘our home’. It’s insane how much of a connection we all felt to Osaka. Especially seeing as many of us felt very little towards the place before we got there. Not that we’d heard anything bad about the place. But we all had this idealistic image in our minds that Tokyo would be the best thing in the world ever, and immediately paled every other place in comparison to it. So we were more than a little surprised that Osaka turned out to be such an amazing place which we did not want to leave.

We were sure to see ‘our home’ out with a bang though. Albeit it an unplanned one. Said bang consisting of: heading to an Irish pub, then to a tiny little bar which was packed to the walls, and then onto to a nightclub to drink and dance our sorrow’s of leaving away. It seemed to do both the trick and make us feel worse. Because the night was so good and we’d met and made so many random friends on this one night, that we were ever more reluctant to leave.

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It’s all well and good visiting Japan and doing the touristy things like visiting shrines, temples, taking pictures of Engrish on sweet wrappers and riding a bullet train. But if like me you like to club it out at home, then you have to do the same in Japan. It’s the law in my eyes. I just had to do it. I needed to know how the Japanese get down.

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There are a lot of tall buildings in Osaka, but one (or two) in particular are pretty special – being one of the city’s most recognizable land marks: The Umeda sky building. It consists of 2 large buildings which connect at their upper most stories. It’s a very distinctive building which is easily distinguishable and clearly visible along Osaka’s sky line, especially during the day. The top floors feature ‘The floating garden observatory’, which offers a stunning view of Osaka and what I imagine are areas not in Osaka at all. The view is truly breathtaking. A couple of my Heroes stanning mates noted how the hollow in the building looked like the eclipse styled O of the Heroes logo. (The geeks…)

For what look like a couple of office buildings, there sure was a lot of cool stuff to see. Spectacles weren’t only found on the upper most floors, but also the ground floor too. The main courtyard at the ground level between the two buildings had a water feature, which lights up at night: giving the illusion that multi coloured water is being poured out of the pillared fountains. Another area also featured what looked like a small Christmas grotto: complete with over-sized gift wrapped presents, wooden cabins and a large Christmas tree. The grotto didn’t look complete, but in it’s unfinished state it still looked pretty cool. Not sure what the purpose of it is though. Whether there’ll be a Santa-san making appearances in December or what. I should’ve asked someone. But you know, lack of knowledge of the Japanese language and all that.

The Umeda sky building is multi purpose. Not only is it a tourist attraction, but a dating hang out, macking plot, make out session spot, kick it with the girl on the d-low zone – whatever you’d like it coin it as. The floating garden observatory featured comfy little pods that couples can snuggle up in, a dark room with a large circular seat around the perimeter and a lit up floor, and then up on the roof-top you had retro style UV lighting. Probably not the best place to take your partner, unless you want to see how much dandruff they have in their hair and how white their and your teeth aren’t. The roof top had a sectioned off ‘couple’s only’ area, which can only be described as a futuristic dance floor with a seat in the middle, looking like something out of a Madonna music video. It looked pretty crap, but we still wanted to plot ourselves down there. I mean, shit. We’d come all this way! A couple of my friends asked the security man / attendant (who looked like M. Bison) if they could go down to it. But the man gave us the old X-arms (which means “No!”). He then told us “Couple’s only”. My friends then replied (with lies) saying “But we’re a couple!” But M. Bison said nope. No gays allowed it would seem.

Whether you want to go on a spot of sightseeing, chill out with friends, go on a nice date, drop a marriage proposal, hold a wedding (Yes, the Umeda sky building offers wedding packages!) or go somewhere to get some nookie with a nice view – you can do it all at the Umeda sky building. Highly recommended. If you do go, be sure to go at night, so you can the cities aglow with lights from the rooftop.