12/30/2009
The second day in Osaka was spent at various tourist attractions including Dotonbori and Den-Den Town. While walking to Dotonbori from the station, Kazuki and I came across some people doing mochitsuki in the street. They were pounding rice into mochi and giving it out with red bean. It was delicious!
Watch your fingers!
I love free samples
The gate to Dotonbori
Dotonbori was bustling with people because it was lunch time. There were numerous street vendors in addition to the vast selection of restaurants. Dotonbori is known for its neon lights, but we were there in the day so it just looked like any other downtown to me. We were going to eat at a recommended ramen restaurant, but the line was ridiculously long. Instead we went to a ramen shop that requires you to order from a ticket machine. First you put in money and choose the meal that you want. Then you take the ticket it spits out and you give it to the staff there. They prepare your meal quickly and usually you can pick it up within 5-10 minutes.
Numerous shops of Dotonbori and ferris wheel
Famous Glico man
Call for a good time~ Outside a host club. I heard its fairly cheap if its your first time!
Step1. Put in money Step2. Push button for ramen of choice Step3. Pick up dispensed ticket
Step4. Hand ticket to ramen staff Step5. Wait for ramen and pick up delicious bowl of ramen
when your number is called Step6. Eat and put finished bowl/tray in designated area.
Our next stop was back at the station. We went to meet up with Stacy, who is another ALT from Komatsu. In the meantime, I started some shopping in the Station shops. That was a bad idea for many reasons...I missed Stacy's phone call, I bought too much and I used too much money. When we finally found Stacy we decided to go to Den-Den Town, which is the Akihabara of Osaka. For those who don't know what Akihabara is, its the area in Tokyo that you can get a lot of cheap electronics, get anime paraphernalia, and go to maid cafes. The three of us chose to go to a maid cafe.
A maid cafe in Japan is geared towards men who have a fetish for maid costumes and behavior. The waitresses there will be dressed in cute French maid costumes and will serve you as if they are actually maids. Most of the time they have cutesy voices and will call you "master" in Japanese. Because Stacy and I are women, they called us the English equivalent of "Milady." The cafe we went to was small, but it was crowded with people. Other maid shops included ear cleaning, or we could have gone to a cat cafe in which kittens roam freely as you eat and drink. I think we chose the right cafe. When Kazuki got his iced tea, the maid asked if he wanted liquid sugar, called gum syrup in Japan, and he said, "yes." OMG I could not stop laughing when she poured it in, stirred it, and said in Japanese, "mixing mixing until it satisfies my master." When I received my "magical parfait" my maid, who was actually dressed not in a maid costume but a middle school girl's gym uniform with short shorts, presented it by saying, "hayaku genki ni naru~ poi!" I think the translation is something along the lines of, "get energy quickly. poof...or bang...or power up." I'm not really sure how to translate "poi." Anyway, were weren't allowed to take pictures in the cafe, unless we paid 600 yen for a photo with a maid, so we just took some pictures outside.
I took a picture of a maid costume...shhh this is a secret.
My "magical" parfait
Outside of the cafe...there was also the option of a cat cafe!
Stacy refused to have cats all over us as we sipped on coffee.
At night we met up with some other Ishikawa Jets near the main station. We went to an Izakaya and had nomihoudai (all you can drink). I drank way too much in those two hours. Let's just say I felt so bad that I left early to go back and sleep. End of day 3.
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