What other travelers are saying about Osaka Mint Bureau (Cherry Blossom Viewing in Spring)
Visited on 4/6 for the sakura viewing. You need reservation to enter during the sakura viewing period. Reservation is open mid March and it runs out fast, so check the website often! This place is famous for its collection of sakura trees, including rare variants with greenish and yellowish flower that is hard to find anywhere else. They also sell commemorative coins, bookmarks, and even cookies and senbei with sakura theme at the gift shop. Definitely worth a trip!
Mint museum is all about the creation of their currency system. I've visited the Currency museum in Tokyo, and enjoyed it so I was also looking forward to this one! It's free admision, with stamps and some interactive content. Unfortunately a lot of the displays are not in English, so it was a quicker walkthrough and less understanding of some of the displays shown. Regardless, I enjoyed this museum and the little gift shop before exiting the properly. I highly recommend visiting the Mint museum for currency and history enthusiasts!
Visited 4/16 and there are still many blooms as compared to other areas in Osaka that we visited. There’s not a lot of people so it’s easy to take lots of pictures. Admission is free and no reservation required for a group of less than 10 pax. It’s nice to visit this place to see the sakura! 🌸🌸🌸
The collection they have is very interesting, but explanations are only in Japanese. Unfortunately the city wifi and the ntt-docomo connection on my phone did not work well enough to do live translations. Ended up taking photos of just about everything, so i can translate it later when i do have a connection. Overall still a worthwhile visit
Especially interesting history behind the coin mintage of Japan, as a coin enthusiast I found this visit essentials and somehow there weren't many tourists around at all. Mainly because there were no English translations on the museum panels which you might be required to use a translator to scan texts.
I found it fascinating that if you compare a silver yen from the Meiji era it's almost apparent to claim Qing China's silver dollars design takes many aspects of the Japanese mint. Unfortunately I'd thought they would have released commemorative coins to celebrate the 150 birthday of the mint, maybe a 150 year Meiji silver bullion? Overall the mint shop didn't have much of interest but the history was definitely worth while.
The location requires quite a walk and from comparison of the old mint models the area has lost most of its former glamour but remains a worthwhile experience.