We love museums. So far we have been to three here in Osaka, one per day. This, combined with the sometimes interminable walking required to use the fantastic public transportation, is why no matter how much I eat, I lose a few pounds on a traveling vacation. And I do eat with abandon, believe me.

For more information on all of these see https://museums.ocm.osaka/museums-info/museums-info-en/

Day One, we wander the Edo period, and eat

First full day we went to the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living. The intricate displays are models of life in the Edo period. One floor is life sized recreation of two streets in Osaka in the 1830s. You look down on the life sized streets from the floor above, then walk down and through it. Warm, helpful docents, authentic houses and shops. There is even a ‘kimono experience, where a kimono expert dresses you, both girls and women, with all the care and intricacy required. The many small scaled displays show Osaka life in the twentieth century. Bonus—adjacent to the building is an arcade shopping street where I satisfied my craving for cold soba and one big veggie tempura. David had a bowl of noodles and other things we couldn’t identify. As is most common here, it was a little narrow “joint” where every order is fresh. Then I bought a big baggy shirt to blend in a bit.

Day Two, we go back to the beginning and through a flurry

The next day it was the Osaka Museum of History. It takes you from the earliest settlements, and all about the archeological digs ongoing to plot where the first people lived, to modern times. Many exhibits are a mix of life sized displays you walk through and multimedia explanations. May I say thank goodness for google translate, which enabled us in every museum to translate the text explanations. Fun, overwhelming, jammed with information—and a bonus—the incredible views of Osaka Castle and surrounding grounds.

Having absorbed our fill of Osaka history we crossed the street to the castle grounds, where a small jammed Lawson’s satisfied our hunger. We made a picnic of our $6 investment and then wandered through bowers of cherry blossoms, petals blowing like a snow flurry. Wow.

Day Three, that feeling

Nakanoshima Museum of Art was a bit of a trek given our predictable issues with Google maps walking directions, but oh so worthwhile . They have no permanent collection—just special shows. We started with the Monet, an enormous retrospective showing how he evolved into painting series. It was stunning, as were the visitors. Lots and lots of hushed conversations about the paintings. It felt different, people more involved with the art than is common in the US.

Down a floor, short rest to get a bit of energy back, and we dove into the other exhibit, Fukuda Heihachiro: A Retrospective. Never heard of the guy. Walked in, and at the third painting i got that feeling, instantaneous love and emotional connection. It is a simple painting, Ducks by the Pond, painted in 1916. That feeling, like the first time I walked into the room of Matisse cutouts at the National Gallery. It is a rush of excitement, then a deep resonance in my chest like a gong. And I want to cry, and do for a few seconds. I couldn’t tear myself away. Walked on to see a huge painting on eight large screens…just sheep. No background , no setting, just intimacy with the animals. This amazing painter evolved and evolved, always paintings and sketches from nature. Later he moved toward abstraction as he distilled water rippling to dashes of blue, closeups of bamboo, a painting titled Rain that is roof tiles in a million shades of blue-grey.

Yeah, idiotic I know but I bought the exhibit catalog that we now have to schlep all over Japan. Photographing his works in the gallery was limited to maybe four, none of which excited me.

So we said goodby to this gorgeous museum with a wave to space cat.