7 ways to enjoy Osaka Castle in the winter

The colder months provide some of the best opportunities to see Osaka Castle, the crown jewel of Japan’s second city.

Powdery ski slopes, spectacular snow-sculpture festivals and steaming hot-spring towns are more than enough to draw travellers to Japan during the frosty winter season. But many forget the huge bonus of travelling to Japan’s main cities in the winter time – that is there are far fewer tourists to contend with at the major sites.

Osaka Castle is the crown jewel of Japan’s second city, and no trip to Osaka is complete without a visit to this important historic site. While very pleasant and picturesque in the warmer months, the trade-off is sharing your picnic site with the crowds. In the winter, there is much more space to enjoy the expansive grounds comfortably at your leisure. Here are seven ways to spend the day at Osaka-jo and its surrounds during the chilly season.

1. Cruise the castle moat on the Golden Wasen

Bundle up on a crisp winter’s day and board the Golden Wasen – a gleaming gold traditional-style Japanese boat that takes you on a 20-minute ride around the stone walls of the inner moat while giving a history lesson on the castle. This roofed gozabune (pleasure boat) with tatami (straw mat) floors takes visitors to rare vantage points for snapping photos of the castle’s main keep. The cruise allows for a deeper appreciation for the imposing 20-metre-high stone walls that surround Osaka-jo, which was regarded as impregnable in its time.

Osaka Castle moat — Take a ride around the inner moat of Osaka Castle on the Golden Wasen.

2. Roam Nishinomaru Garden on the castle grounds

Osaka Castle’s Nishinomaru Garden is the perfect place for a relaxing stroll year round. The approximately 64,000-square-metre open garden area was once the private residence of Kita no Mandokoro, the wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. One of the ‘three great unifiers’ of Japan during the 16th century, it was Hideyoshi who commissioned the construction of Osaka Castle. The garden boasts impressive views of the main keep and outer walls from across the moat. For those visiting in mid-February, the garden’s winter landscape is splashed with bright pink plum blossoms. These dominate a section of the garden aptly named the Umebayashi (Plum Garden) and home to 1270 plum trees of around 100 different varieties.

In the north-east corner of Nishinomaru Garden is the tea ceremony house Hosho-an. This tatami-floored tea house among the trees is a prime example of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi – the idea of accepting the beauty of imperfection. It is easy to admire the beauty of the structure from the outside, but reservations are required to partake in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

Osaka Castle viewed from Nishinomaru Garden — Take a stroll through Osaka Castle’s Nishinomaru Garden.

3. Venture inside the castle and take in views from the top

Osaka-jo was originally built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1583. While the current structure only dates from 1931 and is completely modern inside, the inner workings of the castle still serve as an interesting and informative museum housing around 10,000 historical items. These include armour, weapons, gorgeous folding screens depicting epic battles fought on the castle grounds, personal items of Hideyoshi’s, and much more. The observation deck on the top floor 50 metres up offers sweeping views of Osaka City.

4. Shop and eat your way around Osaka Castle Park

If you’re feeling peckish, Jo-Terrace Osaka in front of the castle is the perfect spot to take a break and grab a bite to eat. Opened in June 2017, the modern outdoor complex features a variety of eateries and cafes in a relaxed atmosphere surrounded by the greenery of Osaka Castle Park. Try classic Osaka dishes such as takoyaki (doughy fried balls containing diced octopus and topped with a rich brown sauce) and okonomiyaki (a savoury pancake with fried meats mixed in).

Located in front of the castle tower is Miraiza Osaka-jo, a complex built from the former military headquarters of the 4th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Originally constructed in 1931, this Western-style redbrick building was refurbished in October 2017 and now contains a host of duty-free souvenir shops, cafes, and Japanese confectionery shops. The restaurants inside offer unparalleled views of the castle.

5. Take Japanese sword-fighting lessons

Have you ever dreamt of becoming a ninja or samurai? Bring your Japanese history fantasies to life at the Japan Tate-do Association in the Miraiza Osaka-jo building. Tate, or the art of Japanese sword fighting, was considered a special technique only for stage and movie actors performing in samurai dramas. Now visitors to Osaka-jo can take 60- to 90-minute classes learning sword fighting and theatrical combat techniques. Best of all, you get to dress the part and look like a character straight out of a Japanese period drama.

Katana — Take a sword-fighting class at Osaka-jo.

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6. Visit the Osaka Museum of History

Located at the south-west corner of Osaka Castle Park, the Osaka Museum of History is a worthwhile add-on to a castle visit if you happen to have extra time on your hands. Each floor explores a different period in Osaka’s past, allowing visitors to experience the 1350-year history of Osaka with life-size reconstructions, scale models, documentary movies and photographs. The top floor of this museum is a partial full-size recreation of the inside of the Naniwanomiya Palace, a construction from the era when Osaka was Japan’s capital.

7. Admire the luminous castle during a winter light show

One of Japan’s best winter light-up events is the Osaka Castle Illuminage. Held in Nishinomaru Garden on the castle grounds in the evenings between December and March, millions of colourful LED lights illuminate the area. Tunnels and light sculptures of Japanese-style buildings, trees, animals, paper cranes, bridges and folding fans decorate the winding path through the garden. The white-walled Osaka Castle is splashed with an array of colours and special effects during the annual 3D projection-mapping extravaganza often designed with a historical theme in mind. With traditional Japanese street performances, food stalls, and lots of other attractions, this night event is one of the most memorable ways to experience Osaka Castle.

Planning a trip? Read our ultimate travel guide to Osaka for more attractions, where to stay and what to eat while you’re there.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.