Visiting Osaka’s Umeda Sky Building, one of the “Top 20 Buildings in the world”

Built in 1994 and standing just a few hundred meters from Osaka Station, the Umeda Sky Building drew large crowds when it first opened, thanks to its unique design of two high-rise buildings connected at the top by the Floating Garden Observatory.

Once pulling in around a million visitors each year, in the days since attendance had dropped to about half that as the building’s novelty wore off and people became used to its towering presence. Having lived nearby for around a decade myself, I have to admit that I’d never been to see it. It looked nice and all but there didn’t seem to be much of a draw.

But it appears I was wrong. In 2014, attendance to the Umeda Sky Building has shot back up to about 975,000, and there are hopes that it will hit the million once mark again this year. Interested to see what this new fervor is all about, I hopped on a train to have a look around this possibly under-appreciated landmark.

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