Umeda Sky Building

The Umeda Sky Building is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Osaka. You can see it while taking the JR loop line. The building is the seventh tallest building in Osaka and is 173 metres tall. Many of the tenants are offices and some countries consulates are located here.

The building was designed by Hiroshi Hara and constructed by Takenaka Corporation, sounds like a similar corporation to the Japanese company in the Die Hard movie, sorry big Die Hard fan

The building consists of two 40 floor towers and are connected by a bridge and an escalator crossing the wide attrium space over the centre. The original plan was for 4 towers but this never eventuated. The towers offer great views over Osaka and it's definately worth visiting, maybe when you visit you will be lucky enough to come when a festival is being held at the ground level between the two towers, every year a Mexico festival is held there. I think their consulate is located in one of the towers but not 100% sure about that At Christmas time they run a German Chrismas fair there where you can buy many things that are German and relate to Christmas.

Many people tend to just climb the tower look at the views, take a few photos and then leave but if you go down some stairs next to the tall building that is not connected to the towers it leads to a village to resembleJapan about 50 years ago. It's a great little place with lots of restraunts and cool photo opportunities. We had Okonomiyaki there.

You can then go outside and spend sometime in a nice park with a pond,a good place to go for a picnic or a sandwich if you haven't eaten yet as there is a sandwich shop (Dotour)just before you exit the park.

The best way to get to the sky building is to get off at JR Osaka station and exit the central north exit you can see the building from there about a 10 minute walk on your left. enjoy

The Umeda Sky Building (梅田スカイビル, Umeda Sukai Biru) is the 7th tallest building in Osaka, Japan, and one of the city's most recognizable landmarks. It consists of two 40-story towers that connect at the top with a bridge across them containing an observatory, The Floating Garden Observatory, which is an atrium-like space centeed between the two towers. There are also garddens and other places to visit at the base of the building.

Located in the Umeda District of Kita-ku, the building was originally conceived in 1988 as the "City of Air" project, with four towers planned but only two were built. The 173 m (568 ft) building was designed by Hiroshi Hara. It was constructed by Takenaka Corporation and was completed in 1993. [From Wikipedia]

Jenny and I were amazed by this structure, which was also featured on Leg 10 of The Amazing Race season 12. I could not believe we went up there the day after we had a 6.7 and a 7.2 earthquake (Oki-ji-shen) which shook our hotel 10-15 feet (4.5 meters) sideways. The floating observatory is a must see in Osaka, despite the aftershocks!