Overseas visitors flock to Osaka's 'triumphal arch of the future'

Offering a sweeping view of the city of Osaka, the twin-towered Umeda Sky Building and its floating garden have been drawing an increasing number of foreign tourists and is on pace to set a record for total annual visitors.More than 50 percent of the 550,000 people who visited the 173-meter-tall observation deck in the first half of the year came from abroad.

In the prior fiscal year, they accounted for around 40 percent. This year, the 23-year-old pair of skyscrapers, which are connected with a rooftop garden, is on track to shatter the record of 1.08 million visitors that was set in its second year.The 15-millionth person to visit the building at the end of July was a 29-year-old man from Britain who discovered the Umeda Sky Building on the Internet. The man said the building was like nothing he had seen before, and he was very interested in seeing it.