Japan Report 03 - Osaka

We’ve arrived at OSAKA! This city has a different vibe than Kyoto. It feels less traditional.

You can really tell why it's called the gastronomic capital of Japan. There's a term “Kuidaore” in Japanese, which basically means: “Eat in Osaka as if you were going bankrupt.”

We started our tour in the shopping district, and while it was tempting to stop at every brand store available we made our way to the famous Dotonbori canal. It was lit up in neon lights, lined with restaurants with giant signs filled with colorful characters: dragons, crabs, giant chefs, etc. It was visual madness and it gave the district a unique touch of personality. Speaking of, if you ever vist you must go to the Ebisubashi bridge to take a picture of the famous “Gilco Man,” a huge sign of a runner on a blue track. While it’s nominally a giant advertisement from the Gilco company, it’s become something of the unofficial mascot of Osaka.

It was on that bridge where we saw a beautiful and striking mutant Gyaru. Her low cut top revealed quite a bit of cleavage, her miniskirt highlighted her three beautiful legsand, and her tanned and exaggerated aesthetic was quite a contrast to the more traditional fashion of Japanese women. For those who don’t know, Gyaru is a particular type of sub-culture in Japan that is vaguely modeled off of more westernized fashion, but taken to an extreme. Gyaru Girls (which is an interesting bit of Japanese language adoption as “Gyaru” itself is a romanization of girl) thrive at being the center of attention, so she had no problem posing for us to let us take a couple pictures.

After that it was a complete food tour. Takoyaki, gyosa, kushi-katsu, and all the other delicacies that the Dontonbori offers were at our fingertips. We also had a chance to go to Universal Studios in Japan to have fun. It was close enough. Luckily we were able to buy the Express passes with the laboratory card.

Stay tuned for more photos of the beautiful mutants of Japan.

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Credit Card Balance

Food at Dotombori = ¥40,000

Shopping at Dotombori = ¥50,000

Universal Japan Passes + Express = ¥72,000

Extra Expenses = ¥22,000

Total = ¥184,000