Yeah. Osaka.
We spent the day downtown around Dotonbori. Which is the famous place to be in Osaka. Seems like you can sum up different parts of Osaka as being ‘like such and such a place in greater tokyo but less so’. Dotonburi is like Shinjuku but less so. Which means it’s full of bright lights, pachinko parlours, shops, restaurants and a bunch of strip clubs.
Well shinjuku doesn’t really have shops or restaurants. But that’s why everything in Oskaka is ‘less so’. Because it’s all more balanced.
The food is definitely better. Cheaper, tastier, easier to access. One of my major gripes about Tokyo and especially Kyoto was the food. Osaka is much better. Actually it’s famous in Japan for food and is considered the countries ‘stomach’. There’s a saying that goes ‘dress till you drop in Kyoto and eat till you drop in Osaka’ referring to the popular passtime of visiting historic sites in Kyoto wearing Kimonos.
I would say Osaka’s food obsession brings it up to par with an average north american city. Not for breadth mind you. There are probably 8 types of restaurants instead of Tokyo’s 4.
Yeah so I forgot the camera today so no pics but google the ‘glico man’ and you’ll be good. Actually the one picture I really wanted was the sign advertising the ‘new style masturbation rooms’. Someone got a little too literal in their translating.
We went to see the new die hard because I wanted to see a movie. They went to the trouble to have two crashed cars, one on top of the other, riddled with bullet holes outside the theatre. I figure that kind of effort deserves some payback. Turns out it doesn’t open for a few days so we ended up seeing The 300.
Hated the message. Not real into lionizing pointless sacrifices. But I can love a movie and hate its message (signs springs to mind). I really like it when movies really crank up the fantasy nob. It’s a movie. It doesn’t have to be plausible. It doesn’t have to be realistic. I don’t know why there are so few fantastic (as in fantasy not as in great) films.
Hero leaps immediately to mind as a movie that accomplished this best. Total fantasy, totally great. And perhapse city of lost children played up the fantasy best while maintaining some kind of applicable to real life basic theme.
Anyway horray for a movie that cranks that nob. Even if the message was crap, the dialogue mostly sucked, and there was an under-emphasis on plot and characters. It looked great and felt great. I defy anyone to watch the introduction of whosit-the-evil-god-king being tramped up on his briliant art deco slave-powered throne and not cream their pants.
Not since The Cell have I so enjoyed such a bad movie. Also the theatre was rediculous with the sound which really added. The 300 is definitely best seen in as loud a theatre as possible.
Anyway then we wandered around Dotonbori again. Hit up a Chococro and called it a night. Back to the Banana House. Fingers crossed… yay noone stole our laptops.
So yeah. Osaka ain’t really doin it for us. There are some cool things in the vecinity. Some hiking to do and some castles to visit. We’ll probably be hopping a flight back home a little earlier than planned.
See you all soonish.
Colin
