The enigma of the Tsutenkaku Tower, Osaka
As soon as I heard there was such a thing as a tower with a slide in Osaka, I was sold. What more could a girl want?
But the tower delivered SO much more than we thought it ever could. Whilst it cosplays as a viewing tower, I’m here to tell you to prepare yourself for the journey you’ll go on if you are visiting.
Gift shops
Be prepared to walk through at least 3 large giftshops in the tower. From selling stuffed toys to Pocky to trinkets, you can easily spend a good chunk of time looking at what they have to offer — the prices were pretty good too, considering we were slap bang in the centre of a tourist attraction!
Gatcha machines
We walked past a few corridors of gatcha machines, and although they’re all over Japan, we did not expect to see so many inside a viewing tower!
Characature artist
You heard me right. Nothing more needs to be said about this.
Museum
The Museum was one of the highlights of tsutenkaku tower. It depicted the history of the observatory, the birth of Pocky and how the infamous Glico sign came to be.
A disco deck
One of the observation decks was donned with a disco ball and loud animated music, which was quite unexpected, but at that point into the tower, anything went.
The slide
The slide is the last thing you do at the tower because of the way things are laid out. Whilst it’s slightly daunting because the slide goes outside of the tower, it’s great fun. At the end, you have the opportunity to download a video of your slide experience. Great to watch back and compare to see who screamed the loudest! (spoiler: it was me).
Overall, we left Tsutenkaku tower with a renewed sense of excitement and discovery of the phrase ‘not everything is as it seems’.
It was exciting to see which way the staff would usher us next, and stumbled across lots of other fun things like stamp collecting and a lift with animations.
If you’re heading to Japan, I’d recommend buying the Osaka amazing pass as it’s incredibly good value for money, and it includes the entry price to Tstutenkaku.
