Our trip to Japan finished with two days in Osaka. This was very clearly earmarked as a shopping opportunity for my wife and I spent much of the time trailing around after her as she sought the wide range of gifts required for friends, colleagues and family.

However, we did spend one morning going to Osaka castle. The castle is protected by a twin moat and some extremely thick stone walls.

In spite of that, the castle has been razed to the ground several times over the years and what is left is an external facade.

Inside there is nothing left of the old building, just several floors with exhibits showing the history of the castle. These were surprisingly interesting, especially the samurai outfits which had me yearning to go home and play Shogun Total War immediately. And it was much more enjoyable than shopping.

Once she who must be obeyed had fulfilled most of her gift shopping requirements, I steered her toward Den Den town, and area of Osaka famous for electronics, toys, Cosplay and assorted weird stuff. This gave me a chance to acquire a Gundam robot for The Son, and snap a few shots of a place that is nothing like Bangkok’s Sukhumvit road.

Evening saw us heading for Dotonbori where you can find food, shopping and lights, the most famous of which is the running man:

After food, she who must be obeyed had another shopping urge which left me hanging around on a bridge with a bunch of teenagers and wandering the nearby streets. ISO was up to 5000 for some of the shots, with lighting coming from the garish, flashing neon all around, so B&W conversion seemed appropriate for many of them.

And that was the end of our first trip to Japan. Far too brief and I hope the autumn leaves will arrive on schedule so I can go back next month and shoot in Kyoto for a week.

Can’t end without what I believe young people call a “shout out” to my camera gear. This was not a photo taking holiday, so my camera had to be an easy accessory to carry around and whip out when the opportunity presented itself. The E-M5 served admirably in this regard, but I wish I had brought my Panasonic 14-45mm lens as a default attached lens, I spent too much time swapping between my 7-14mm, 25mm and 75mm lenses. I also took the 45mm but it didn’t see much use.