As I stand outside Osaka Station one morning in mid April, a quartet of college students direct visitors to the train line that runs out to Osaka Bay and Expo 2025. It’s mere minutes after morning rush hour, and beyond the station, the broad boulevards of Japan’s second city are eerily, beautifully empty.
Instead of rushing off to the Expo, I face a more mundane decision: clockwise or counterclockwise — which direction to start my trek along Osaka’s 21.7-kilometer Osaka Loop Line.
The Kanjosen, as it’s known in Japanese, didn't start out as a loop. The initial section was born in 1898 as the Joto Line, connecting Osaka and Tennoji stations in the eastern parts of the city so as not to impede the ships that passed through the rivers of the western districts. A large section of the line was destroyed during an air raid on the final full day of World War II, and the rebuilt line was officially completed as a circuit in 1961.
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