Osaka!

Getting close to wrapping thing up: a quick description of my time in Osaka. I was particularly lazy my last couple of days, so apologies for the lack of photos!

Day 1

Day one, I got all checked in and read through my guidebook to figure out what I wanted to see. To quote a girl at my hostel in Kyoto: "There's nothing to do in Osaka except shopping and eating." To quote me, "And who says that's a bad thing?"

Osaka is a little light on shrines, castles, and gardens, but it more than makes up for it in restaurants, food stalls, and shops. The epicenter of all this is the Minami area, who's epicenter is the stretch of road called Dotonburi. It's a group of pretty much nothing but restaurants and food stalls that runs for several blocks along the river. My hotel was just a few blocks from one end of Dotoburi, so my first night I decided to go and stuff myself full of street food. I got a big bowl of ramen, some grilled crab, coffee, and (my favorite) takoyaki. In my meandering, I also stumbled on a tiny little shrine, surrounded on all sides by restaurants and bars, and full of little buddhas, fuzzy with moss. I also found a tiny little bar just called 'Jon's Whisky Bar,' which sounded right up my alley, but when I walked in, the owner stood up and spouted a ton of Japanese at me. I wasn't quite sure what it meant, but it started with 'Excuse me, sorry sir...' so I figured it boiled down to 'We're closed.' A little disappointed, but more full and sleepy, I went home to bed.

Day 2

I woke up to...a conference call? I'm going on a road trip this summer with some college roommates, and had to sort out some details with them. Afterwards, I went to meet up with Eli, a friend from my second internship. He's travelling the world with a friend while they do startups, and happened to land in Osaka for one of the same days as me. We met up underneath 'the big, moving crab statue in Dotonburi' at 11 for lunch. Thankfully we both picked the same one, as we found out there are 3 or 4 big, moving crab statues on the street >__<

We went for conveyor belt sushi, and unfortunately got seated at the end of the belt farthest from the chefs, so a lot of stuff got picked over before we got a grab at it. Thankfully, they took orders as well, so we were able to eat a good meal. Afterwards, we went for dessert at ChocoCron and got some weird pastries topped with soft-serve. We wandered a bit after that, then split up.

After, I went to wander Kita, the area around Osaka-Umeda station (where I arrived). It's a huge block of department stores (which, in Japan, are 10-15 story behemoths with everything from electronics to groceries). Lonely Planet recommended I check out one in particular for its kitchen gadgets and food stuff, but I had trouble finding it. Three of those enormous department stores are all connected to the station, along with 2 metro lines and 2 different rail companies, so I got completely and utterly lost. I stopped off at a super swanky coffee shop (leather, granite, and hardwoods everywhere) to figure out where I wanted to be. While flipping through the book I also got to watch a Japanese business card exchange, which is a weirdly formal ceremony. The exchange of cards is a super-duper ritualized thing, where everyone has a place in the hierarchy and swaps cards accordingly. I snooped on that (hopefully not too obviously), then found where I wanted to go. Dinner was at a kushikaya (everything is deep-fried and on a stick) place in Dotonburi, where I finally got a taste of normal American bar/restaurant service: polite and friendly-ish, but not super deferential. It was nice!

Day 3

Day 3 in Osaka was pleasantly uneventful. I woke up late, grabbed a big bowl of ramen for breakfast/lunch, then went shopping. My primary target was the big underground mall that forms a cross shape smack in the middle of the city with Shinsaibashi, the FREAKING MASSIVE covered shopping street that starts at Dotonburi and goes way too far North. Seriously, stand in the middle of Shinsaibashi. Look one way, then the next, and you can't see the end of the street in either direction. It's a weird mix of duty-free shopping for tourists, hip and edgy clothing for kids, cheap kimonos for more tourists, and $15,000 kimonos for super formal occasions. The cross-street mall was much less interesting, but there were a few shops near the intersection of the two that were interesting. I really liked one in particular that seemed to be aimed at folks in the hipster demographic, particularly newly-weds or soon-to-be-parents. Everything from the china to the baby bibs to the chotzkies were local, artisanal, and hand-made.

Later, I wandered through the area just south of Dotonburi and accidentally stumbled into the restaurant supply district. This was probably one of the highlights of my trip to Osaka. If you've ever been to Japan, you'll understand why. There was one shop that sold nothing but the cloth hangings restaurants put over their doors. Another sold lacquerware. I passed three shops that specialized in the plastic food that Japanese restaurants put in their window to advertise what they sell.

The highlight, though, was undoubtedly the knife shops. These were absolutely incredible to wander around. Everything from a 2-inch long paring knife, all the way up to a three foot long, foot-and-a-half wide tuna axe, used to hack the car-size blue-fin tuna into manageable chunks

Dinner that night was real Kobe beef at a teppanyaki restaurant my concierge recommended, called 'Ken.' Tiny little hole in the wall place. It was good! The owners were adorable, and (I think) married. They had that vibe about them, at least. They swapped out cooking and house-keeping duties pretty fluidly, though the man spent most of the time cooking. He also had a very strange and awkward smile. Odd detail to remember, I know, but ask me to mimic it next time you see me and you'll see what I mean.