Sleepless Travels Reloaded

Namba Station

Warning: photo-heavy post.
We spent the first 2 nights in Osaka for logistical reasons.

It was pretty fun if a bit rushed. On the first day we got lost around Umeda/Osaka station trying to find Yodobashi Camera, where Ray decided to buy the Sony H3 DSC. But we decided to head on down to Nipponbashi to check out prices there…then Bic Camera at Namba…and finally back to Yodobashi (we got lost again). Its a wonder how I was ever able to get any shopping done that day…

Despite all that, I really love Yodobashi Camera. Everything under one roof! I bought toys (check out the rows of gashapon machines!), a psp umd case, headphones and 2 headphone cases there. Spent quite a while browsing the cameras and lenses and trying to get them to sell me a wide angle lens for the Sony V3 but unfortunately it wasn’t being sold anymore. D:

We had lunch at a ramen place on the restaurant floor. I had something which turned out to be spicy hokkaido style ramen with bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots must be canned or something. It wasn’t properly prepared so it turned out smelling like urine D: But anyway the funny thing is that the spoon for the chilli had a picture of a koala on it! Kind of ironic.

For dinner we had okonomiyaki at Dotonbori Goku Raku Shoutengai, which is a building full of shops and restaurants set in an nostalgic Meiji-period sort of atmosphere. Pretty cool, just unfortunate that it was completely empty!

The okonomiyaki was okay but the drinks were sooo diluted.

The Minami (Dotonbori, Shinsaibashi, Namba etc) area is really where it’s at for Osaka. Namba, along with Osaka/Umeda, is one of the biggest stations in Osaka. Dotonbori is the eating area and Shinsaibashi-suji is for shopping.

The Glico Man and giant crab are some of Dotonbori’s famous landmarks. The giant crab is next to Shinsaibashi bridge and appears to be a popular meeting spot. Actually I’ve set up 2 meetings in front of the giant crab when I was there - see how useful it is!

It was so fun watching all the dressed-up Japanese. From OLs to garus and Johnny’s hairstyle boys, it provided endless entertainment. No doubt I was taking mental style notes too!

This little guy has probably become one of my favourite “only in Japan” characters >_<

We stumbled upon a street of love hotels around Namba area. It’s not seedy at all though, looked very decent and respectable.
Eriko and Tomomi say that they are really good value for money when it comes to acomodation >_>
If you check in at 10pm and leave at 10am it comes to about 3000 yen each, with really nice room, jacuzzi, karaoke in the rooms and breakfast in the morning.

Also found a supermarket near our hotel. As usual all the vegetables were shrinkwrapped in plastic and PERFECT. No wonder fresh veg are relatively expensive in Japan. I guess the imperfect vegetables all get made into pickles or something. It was also cool how they had electronic price tags. Gotta love their perfectly marbled beef too.

View full-size photos (not just the terrible collages, but the actual photos) in my Flickr Japan 2007 set here.