Sunday, 17 April 2011

Japan Firsthand: Osaka (大阪) Photojournal



Just a couple more cities to go and this photojournal will come to an end! Writeups for M3 and Reitaisai (take 2) are still in the cards, don't worry. For now, let's look at Osaka, the third largest city of Japan. MOSAIC.WAV regularly play here and the Den Den Town is quite large and comparable to Akihabara. We ran into tons of hilarious Engrish signs and ate delicious food. Hotels in Osaka are extremely cheap and quite clean! It's also a great hub to other "nearby" cities such as Kobe and Kyoto. Siliconera recently had a feature on the Osaka gaming industry which may be interesting to some readers.

Still to come: Hiroshima and Tokyo! All pictures by CRIMExTHINK (click for larger resolution)


On the train from Tokyo to Osaka... no snow in either cities, tons in between!

The Tsutenkaku (通天閣) is a tower with an interesting history.
It is not that tall by today's standards, but it used to be the tallest in Orient at some point in time.
The surrounding neighborhood Shin-Sekai is a pedestrian's paradise, tons of restaurants and shops.

See description above!

Almost looks like the Eiffel Tower, doesn't it? That was the whole point.

A view from the top of Tsutenkaku.

Too bad this street was closed because it looked awesome.
We may have been there on the first of January, however...

The Osaka Mode Gakuen (大阪モード学園) is really impressive in person.
Half of the building is this big sphere sticking out, the other is a Fashion school.

I have a thing for skyscrapers, so does Osaka! Match made in heaven...

Beautiful building.

This Engrish sounds dangerous!

More downtown skyscrapers. This thing on the right was a monument to perpetual motion...

I LOVE LAMP

This building is the Umeda Hankyu Building (梅田阪急ビル). Looks badass!!!

Bye-bye downtown Osaka.

This Engrish sounds delicious! (zoom in!!!)

Osaka Den Den Town (でんでんタウン) is quite large, but we don't have pics from the awesome backstreets...
The Melon Books store here had huge MOSAIC.WAV and ave;new sections.

Nanbanishiguchi (難波西口)

Nankai Nanba Station (南海なんば駅). They do train stations RIGHT.

Umeda Sky Building (梅田スカイビル) elevator to HEAVEN...

View from Umeda Sky Building (梅田スカイビル)

The Umeda building has some of the craziest architecture in the world. BEAUTY!

Some of you guys run into these vans quite often... maybe they wake you up in the morning?

Hilarious Pet Salon with Internet cat meme on the shutters.

Amerikamura (アメリカ村) has some... interesting lamps.

This basement in Amerikamura is normally full of punk record stores and bars but... they were all closed :(
At least MANDARAKE GRANDCHAOS was open and they were blasting some ULTRA-PRISM. Denpa: 1, Punk: 0!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

OH MY GOD!, This is awesome! I have a friend who lives in Osaka and she never shown me these places. And I always wanted to look for Osaka's landmarks. Thanks, This is awesome!