大型児童館ビッグバン

Wow! This place is awesome!

Definitely off the beaten path for most Osaka visitors, as it's well outside the city center. However, if you have kids and aren't opposed to navigating the Osaka subway and train lines, then a visit to Children's Museum Big Bang should be on your agenda.

We were looking for an indoor activity for our 7 year old twins when the forecast called for rain and found Children's Museum Big Bang after a quick google search. The place is part museum, part indoor playground, part activity center and more!

The main building has 4 floors of varied activities - the highlights for our twins were the giant croc, mini zip line, climbing tree house and trampoline on level 3. They also enjoyed the interactive toy exhibits/displays on level 4 - particularly the 1970s-ish psychedelic light display. Level 4 is also the entrance to the 4 story climbing tower in the adjacent building!!! Yes, 4 stories of ladders, tubes, slides, etc. Adults are welcome to climb as well or they can do as we did - take the elevator to level 8 and wait for the rug rats to get there.

For those worried about safety (like the Mrs) the kids are given a plastic bicycle helmet for protection and free reign to climb, scamper, run and slide through 4 stories of metal bars and tubing. Gotta love Japan! The Mrs nearly had a coronary, but she (and the kids) survived.

Staff, as usual in Japan, were extremely friendly and helpful. Our limited Japanese and their limited English do not affect our visit at all.

TIP: Like with most children-related activities, arrive after 2 pm to AVOID the hundreds of school children (I'm not exaggerating) on excursion. If not, YOU WILL BE SORRY. After 2 pm, we practically had the entire place to ourselves.

From Nagahoribashi Station, the cost was 720 yen/adult/one way and
330 yen/child/one way. Make sure you don't get on the express train - or you'll miss your stop. The trip took about an hour.

CASH ONLY