Ninety seconds on Osaka Castle
Climb to the eighth-floor deck, fifty metres up, for the moats, the stone walls and the whole city around the park. Come for the nine o'clock opening, because the queue builds fast after ten.
From the fifth floor, climb to the observation deck on the eighth, with the whole park and the city around it. The sixth floor is a closed corridor, so the stairs pass it without a stop.
On the way down, the seventh floor tells the life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who built the first castle, in miniature dioramas, and the fifth explains a painted screen of the castle's final siege and restages one of its battles in miniature figures. The third has a full-size model of his folding golden tea room. Some of the displays change about every two months.
Then go next door to the Toyotomi Stone Wall Museum, where steps take you underground to a section of the first castle's wall.
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