8 April 2025
Too many tourists taking photos
Dotonbori and Shinsaibashi
There are more tourists in the Dotonbori area of Osaka than the rest of Japan combined. It has been like this for quite some time.
Even on a Tuesday night it was so busy that I really walked around the main areas rather than through it.
Even worse, everyone is standing in the middle of the crowd trying to take a photo of the crowd... just like me! How dare they.
Anyway, I was still a bit buggered from earlier as a result of yesterdays travel, and today I have drunk approximately 90 litres of various fluids, so I did not go very far. I might be in bed at 8:30pm!
Tomorrow is a rest day, also washing (laundry) day, although I might go somewhere very close to Kyoto, but not Kyoto, and not Nara.
This is the area outside the front of my hotel, Takashimaya department store on the right.
Some sort of setup for the 'Festival of lights in Osaka 2025'. There are a lot of seats.
Osaka is all in on hosting the expo. I urge them to curb their enthusiasm, and maybe take a trip across the water to Yeosu in South Korea, the expo area there is now so abandoned it is now in danger of collapsing into a hole, but at least they got a bullet train station which meant I went there to gawk at the rusty former expo site.
Octopus or dragon, the choice is yours. It gets dark here later than I thought.
Dotonbori, from the edge, too busy to go and see the glico man.
I had pre determined that my dinner would be ramen. The next challenge was to find out if it was still possible to find ramen for 1000 yen. Success. It was good too, the noodles in particular were great.
I crossed back over Shinsaibashi, far from Dotonbori, still busy.
The back streets were easier to navigate.
And the back streets off the back streets, also known as alleyways, were very interesting.
Here is the other side of Dotonbori, seen from even further afar.
So many tourists.
I then found an area I had not been too before, kind of wedged between 3 different areas over near den den town.
There were a lot of big restaurants in this area.
And for my final shot tonight, the road to den den town.
My challenge tomorrow morning is to not get to where I am going too early. The greatest challenge to date.