We started the day with a ride on the subway to the “southern” downtown area of Namba. The central boulevard, Midosuji, is a spiffed up version of Fifth Avenue, with every designer boutique known to man. The side streets are, on the other hand, riotous piles of bars, restaurants, and little shops, many of them covered by arcades.
We made our way to the main market, Kuromon, which echoes the big markets we had seen in Tokyo and Kanazawa. This one seemed to offer more fun, though; Osaka has a reputation as “Japan’s Kitchen,” its motto is “eat until you’re ruined.” Most of the 150 stands sell fish, meat, and other foodstuffs, but others that sell the necessities of everyday life are mixed in as well.
Vladimir had infected us with knife fever, and we wandered on toward yet another arcaded shopping area, Doguyasuji Street. This one specializes in kitchen supplies; the stores specializing in knives are a particular treat.
We ended up, more or less by accident, in Dotonbori, the famous center of all things street food in Osaka. One finds everything from sit down restaurants to storefronts to rolling stands, many of them offering one or the other of Osaka’s two specialities: Takoyaki (deep fried octopus balls) and Okonomiyaki (a kind of thick pancake stuffed with cabbage, meat or seafood, and god knows what else).
Vladimir had never really gotten his snow crab fix in Kanazawa, and when he saw a ten-foot wide crab flexing its claws on the front of a restaurant, our fate was sealed.
The full-blown crab meals were eyewateringly expensive, and we didn’t want much for lunch in any case, so we shared some crab churashi and a crab egg custard.
We all returned to the hotel, but Sue and I set off after a short siesta to run some errands. We had already purchased tickets on the Shinansen to Tokyo for Sue, Connie, and Vladimir since their rail passes had run out, but I had not had my rail pass (which was still valid) with me, and we needed to return to the station so that I could get a reservation on the same train. Except that I was told I couldn’t get a reservation on the same train: my pass wasn’t valid on the very fastest bullet train (which covers the 247 miles from Osaka to Tokyo in 2 1/2 hours), but only on an extremely fast bullet train (which takes 20 minutes longer)! So first Sue and later the Bans changed trains…and everybody saved fifty bucks.
Then, success! Sue actually found the matching sake glasses in Daimura, one of the huge department stores in Osaka! As a bulldog accomplishment, this might not rank with finding our niece’s errant passport in an Atlanta lost mail facility, but it’s up there.
We finished the walk by exploring more of the architecture around the Used station, concluding with a quick visit to Yodobashi Camera, a ten floor electronics emporium. Like pretty much everything else we’ve seen in Japan, the prices here were 10-20 % higher than at home.
We were eager to try Osaka’s signature dishes. Since we had been to the epicenter of street food earlier in the day, we got a recommendation for a okonomiyaki restaurant nearer home. Pretty good stuff, but enormous portions; we all left a huge chunk of pancake on the warming griddle at our table.
