Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: Japan : Kyoto/Osaka

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Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels
Japan (Osaka & Kyoto) May 5th-11th 2012

Green Dragon Ramen

Day 6 - Osaka (10th May 2012)

After the night revelry at Dotonbori, we slept in late again today and decided to have an early lunch at this dragon place. It was ramen (again) - the tonkotsu type. But we find the one served at Satsumakko much better.

Dotonbori at Lunch Time

We decided to walk around and have a feel of the place during day time. Dotonbori and it's adjoining streets were still full of people, but this time more were office workers than tourists.

It was still lively, but didn't have the liveliness of the night crowd. The giant Fugu fish were still there, but fewer shop-assistants were heard shouting to attract passer-bys to their outlets. Anyway we were not so keen on shopping, more on feeling the day-time ambiance of the place.

Dotonbori Theater

We noticed an old theater, that we missed in the previous night's excitement. Although having a stately old architectural style, it seems out of place among the newer commercial shops.

There were a couple of murals hanging on the wall of the theater. Both depicted people of olden days Japan - samurais being entertained by geishas.

It seems that Dotonbori prior to today's commercial scene, it had a different past - as a cultural theater district! Then it was known as Dotonbori Theater Street.

Walking through the off-shoot alleys, we made our way towards Den Den Town, Nipponbashi, a 20mins. walk. It is renown as the 2nd largest electronics area after Tokyo's Akihabara District. Other then, electronics and hardware, it is also gaining fame as an anime center.

Photo from Wikipedia

I noticed different sections of this district, have hanging railings of different colors, perhaps to guide patrons on their location (memories of Kyoto's Cupola rooves). While the others went around looking at electronics, I hung around at the anime shops.

There were all sorts of anime cartoons and dolls, and other toys appealing to the young boy in me. I saw Transformer robots, samurais, ninja girls, etc. Some of the anime girls dolls were surprisingly, attractively revealing. Heh... heh!

Mihara's Seafood & Steakhouse.

In the evening, while exploring the alleys off Dotonbori street, we stumbled upon Mihara's Seafood & Steakhouse.

Mihara-san, a chirpy gentleman, having worked in New York spoke pretty good English. He was a sporting chap. entertaining & posing with us while cooking our teppan-yaki meal.