This is Shinsaibashi. Shinsaibashi is one long street that exists as a covered shopping mall. They have all the things you could want to have, and several more that you would not.
The food coat, sadly, was a medium, and I take a large. This place, though, did have a very nice arcade, and the pachinko parlor pictured elsewhere. As near as I can tell, Pachinko is a fool's wager. Imagine playing a slot machine, where you're not very likely to win in the first place. Now imagine that it's a gamble whether your coin even reaches the slot at all. Yay Pachinko!
From Shinsaibashi, we cruised through Dotombori for a while. Where Shinsaibashi has that kind of "mall" feel to it--covered, neatly laid out, fairly easy to navigate--Dotombori feels a lot more like the kind of place Chow Yun-Fat would tear through on a motorcycle and blast the fuck out of. There's just SO MUCH going on there. Every store and stall and restaurant is competing for your attention, be it through giant sign, or massive animatronic crab, or drumming clown. We hit a lot of places here, and like Courtland said, they were all fantastic. Even when I had no damn idea what was going on, it was a treat just to be in there.
I'm smiling because I don't yet know that the clown back there has actually pierced David's brain and will be murdering me in my sleep in a couple of days.
From Dotombori, we started to get a little lost. One of the tricky parts of Osaka is that 90% of the streets are not labelled. We had a compass with us, so we knew we were going in the general direction of where we wanted to be next, but we had no damn idea where we were until then. I have to theorize that the government has used the money that would have otherwise gone to street signs and spent them on vending machines. It's absolutely true what they say about Japan being a vending machine culture. There are beverages to be had every 30 feet. So far, I've tried 7 different kinds. Yesterday's included a perfectly decent can of coffee and milk, an overly sweet melon cream soda, a couple of bottled waters, and a good old Coke. Somewhere between Dotombori and Den Den, THIS happened.
I really can't overemphasize the magnitude of this porn store. You see that building? An ENTIRE FLOOR of that place is wall-to-wall filth. Dirty comics, lovingly inked by skilled smut artisans, are piled to the ceiling for your perusal. Whatever your fancy, it's in there, and it's not in discreet paper bags. Well, it is once you leave the store, but while in there, it's on full display (pixelization notwithstanding). And the patrons do not wear trenchcoats and avoid eye contact, either. People here browse the porn like they would the new releases table at Barnes & Noble. Men, women, teens, families. It's simultaneously refreshing and worrying. Mostly refreshing.
Den Den Town finished out our evening. Camera stores, audio/video stores, and toy stores, oh, lord, the toy stores.
I could have stayed in this place for days. Super Potato has an entire floor dedicated to retro games from every system ever conceived. I walked up to that floor and the loudspeakers were playing the music from Ninja Gaiden (NES). This was a place where, for once in my life, I wasn't sad that I knew that.
Dinner was delicious.
I think our language skills might be starting to fail. I'm not sure how Courtland, Ed, and I all pointed to the same picture on the menu and wound up with different dishes. Still, ramen is universally delicious, so we didn't mind too much.
We successfully navigated the Osaka subway system back to the stop that's mere blocks from our hotel. Then Courtland got us completely fucking lost again.
God dammit.
1 comment:
Have you considered reverse psychology? Whatever C. suggests, do the opposite? This said, of course, at the risk of major mayhem, but I shall not be called a bastard for not commenting. I prefer being called a bastard for being a lawyer.
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