Getting to j-pat from the JR Osaka, Hanshin Umeda, or Hankyu Umeda Stations
BY TAXI
Have your cab go to the U.S. Consulate—we’re a two-minute walk away. From the consulate, go a block south to the Daily Yamazaki convenience store, fronting the same avenue, on the corner. Turn left and walk two blocks down the side street until you arrive at the Ooe Building, with its unique corner entrance, on the left.
ON FOOT (about 15 minutes)
JR Osaka Station: Exit from the central ticket gates and turn right to go out the south side of the station. Cross the wide road in front of the main entrance to the station building, and turn left to head roughly east toward the Hanshin Department Store on the corner. At the corner, where a bend in the wide east–west road intersects the northern head of the Midosuji Avenue, turn right, going along the curved corner of the Hanshin Department Store building.
You’re now on the Midosuji. Walk in the direction of traffic, heading south along the right side until you come to the next major intersection, where the Midosuji meets a road called Route 1 to the left heading east to Kyoto, and called Route 2 to the right heading west to Kobe. Cross the Midosuji there, over to the east side.
You’re now at the base of a tall half-cylinder building with a pizza restaurant on the ground floor. To your right at the corner of the east side of the Midosuji and the north side of Route 1 is the broad stair landing to a pedestrian bridge. Cross the pedestrian bridge to arrive in front of a very tall building called the Phoenix Tower. Walk a short way on down the Midosuji, past the series of tall office buildings, till you arrive at the corner that is the tip of a triangular intersection where an avenue called the Shin-Midosuji merges with the Midosuji, and a small geodesic police station (kōban) appears. Cross the Shin-Midosuji there at the corner, and you will be between the U.S. Consulate, on your left, and the Daily Yamazaki convenience store, on your right. Go down the side street that starts to the right of the convenience store, two blocks until you arrive at the Ooe Building, with its unique corner entrance, on the left.
Hanshin Umeda Station (underground, beneath the Hanshin Department Store): Exit to street level on the east side, and follow the above instructions from “You’re now on the Midosuji.”
Hankyu Osaka Umeda Station: Exit the platform-level ticket gates at the incoming end of the train, go down a middle or left/east-end escalator or flight of stairs to ground level, and head straight through your pick of corridors toward the Hankyu Department Store. Walk down the concourse flanked by the Hankyu Department Store on the right and the Hankyu Grand Building on the left, until you get to the end, where leftward appear stairs and escalators leading underground to the Hanshin Railway and the subways. Don’t go downstairs, but turn left and walk the short corridor that exits the concourse. You’re outside at the first of two crosswalks split by a tiny triangular island at the triangular corner of the Navio multistory department-store-and-restaurant building. Cross both, then go to the right, walking around the tall, modular, black glass-and-steel building, and head east along the south side of the building as far as the crosswalk at the traffic signal. Cross that crosswalk, and backtrack along the same street, opposite the black glass-and-steel building and in front of the Sonezaki Police Station, to the corner, where the street you’re on intersects a Route 176 reappearing as the head of Midosuji Avenue. Turn left around the police station, and you’re walking along the east, left side of the Midosuji. Walk down the avenue until you get to the tall half-cylinder building with the pizza restaurant on the ground floor, mentioned above under “From JR Osaka Station,” and follow those directions from that point.