View the previous/first post in this series here.
01 July 2008
After dropping by Universal Studios and visitng Osaka Castle, the tour bus took us Shinsaibashi (心斎橋) -- one of the biggest shopping areas in Osaka. Technically the name of the place is the name of a bridge but it is refers to the entire shopping district.
Entering the shopping district. Bicycles are parked in a neat row in the center of the pedestrian street.
The many eating places here have interesting decorations. Here's a large crab.
The local lottery
One of those reasonably common ¥100 shops
Looks like they serve pufferfish here
What the hell!
A place where we will be having buffet lunch on the roof
According to my tour guide, Osaka is famous for Tako (octopus) balls and this is the best shop in Shinsaibashi.
Baskets of chopped octopus, yum!
The balls are basically grilled dough with a piece of octopus in them, to be served with some garnishing and sauce. They even folded a leaf boat.
This is actually some sort of oval ferris wheel
Capsules of the ``ferris wheel"
The river, I think that is the bridge this place is named after
Some nice flowers nearby
Now this... tastes very good!
A local theatre
This should be an old style ramen house
Mcdonald's! Not that I was impressed but my friend wanted to try some pork burger from there.
It reeeeally looks normal to me, and it is not even the McRib
Shinsaibashi-suji, a large sheltered shopping area
It is not even noon yet but look at the crowd. That's the weekend for you.
The man-holes are decorated and painted. Here's a depiction of Osaka Castle
More interesting restaurant decorations
Getting tired, we returned to the have lunch at the prior arranged restaurant
where our guide told us that we will be getting a taste of the Osaka subway.
We will be traveling to the Shin-Osaka Shinkansen Station (bullet train) via
the local subway.
Walking towards the subway station, a peacock decoration above Daimaru
Subway time
Looks pretty complicated but all the stations have romanized names. Today we are spared the hassle of buying the tickets as they have been pre-purchased by our guide.
A ticket, it is paper on one side and what looks like magnetic material on the other
Down we go the narrow stairs
The trains here have separate carriages
They have high ceilings too
Finally we arrived at the Shinkansen station. Here is where one buys tickets.
The gantry
The Shinkansen tickets. It says, ``Shin-Osaka <-> Kyoto"
Various bullet train versions. The last being the newest I believe.
The seats inside are spacious and comfortable
Off we go!
Osaka to Kyoto is mainly sub-urban sprawl without much of a countryside
The ticket warden comes round to check our tickets
Reaching Kyoto station at about just 15 minutes later. The train probably didn't even reach optimal speed.
A cake shop with delicious looking cakes at Kyoto station
2 comments:
Every picture of Shinsaibashi looks so familiar, except that I was there at night. Oh and I think I was at that particular 100yen shop too!
I tried McPork, and must say that it was a huge disappointment. It was quite pathetic.
Oh, and the food place with the big chubby man on top - Dotombori - is rather interesting inside. Concept is like our marche, and the interior decor is very ancient japanese. My friend loved the okonomiyaki in there.
Looking forward to the post on Kiyomizu temple. Nice temple.
Aiks, I didn't go in. I guess that is the good and bad thing of having the meal covered by the tour package.
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