The Great Hill - oosaka -大阪

For haruyasumi (Spring Break) I went on a series of day trips all over the Kansai region. I went with two friends K and S. 16th was the trip to Osaka. The main highlight of this trip was visiting all the major attractions in Namba, Den Den town, Osaka Castle, and Umeda.

One of the most iconic parts of Namba which is the major shopping districts of Osaka is the Glico man advertisement. Namba is basically a long and huge street full of various shops. You really get a sense of the Japanese fashion sense walking through there. There were some very well-known and expensive brand name shops in there too. I felt poor looking at the stuff inside. But anyways, I had fun walking through the crowds and window shopping.

One of the highlights of the day was the crepes. We got our crepes from a stand called 'Ojisan' inside Namba. Crepe is basically a french pancake with cream and fruit. I got ｲｽﾁｮｺﾊﾞﾅﾅ crepe or Chocolate Banana Ice Cream crepe. I heart crepes. I always wondered why they are not popular in the US.
So yeah we mainly spend the day walking all over the Osaka shopping district because it is basically endless. We some how ended in the sketchier part of Osaka with the porn shops and girl lounges. On the way there we saw ads for Host Clubs. Osaka is known for its Host Clubs. For those who don't know Host Clubs are were girls go and pay to talk to cute guys. The hosts are considered very fashionable and hot. I think they are pretty effeminate. If you ever want to catch a glimpse of them in the flesh head outside of Osaka Station at night. You will see them outside trying to get girls to come to their club.

After Namba we decided to check out the infamous den den town. Den Den town is really called Nipponbashi but anyways it is the electronics shopping district also filled with otaku like things. I didn't take any pictures mainly because I forgot and also it would be a bit embarassing. I was fine with the electronics shops but when we got to the otaku section it got a bit weird. We passed by maid cafes and cosplay shops. That didn't bother me but in the video game, manga, and anime shops every other thing I saw was a cutesy half naked girl. Den-den town shops do no attempt to hid the hentai and porn. It was really strange because when I went up to the second floor of a shop trying to look for my friends I thought I stepped into the adults only floor. Awkward...but I found them and we went on our merry way.

Osakajou or Osaka Castle was the main purpose of our trip. K went to Osaka Castle prior to our day trip and he was able to see all the peach blossoms in bloom in front of the castle. When we went they were all dead. But anyways, we took a nice, long walk around the castle. It was amazing to see it light up. Unfortunately, the entire interior of Osaka Castle was overly renovated so it does not look like a castle on the inside anymore. It also doesn't help that it was rebuilt so many times because it burnt to the ground twice.

To end the day we ended up in Yodobashi-Umeda to go eat. We went to a pan Asian restaurant that served us ishiyaki. While reading the kanji we felt really dumb because we didn't know what that meant. Apparently, ishiyaki just means it was cooked inside a stone bowl. I had ramen ishiyaki and it was spicy and delicious.

And below was one of the most interesting photos I took so far in Osaka. Walking back from Osaka Castle we passed by another bridge. The street across the bridge was brightly lit with blue lights. I thought that it was very cool also the sign was a nice effect.


Next is Kobe.