The Dotonbori

A bedazzling, maddening, whirlwind.  An overstimulating experience.  New York Times Square on steroids.  Bright lights, big city magnified to the Nth degree.   Seas of humanity pouring through the arcades, the endless covered shopping walks, the subway tunnels.  Hawkers along the Dotonbori soliciting business, the collective staff in shops and establishments shouting “Irrashaimase!” as you walk in, cacophonous choruses of welcomes… Girls in uber short skirts and skorts (no matter how frigidly the wind blows) and uber seductive over-the-knee socks or tights…. Big eyes fringed by lashes that go on and on; pouty lips – almost anime-like, life following art/ artifice.  Food is not a problem here, nor drink, as long as one has yen in their pocket.  There is food and drink everywhere, any time of night or day.  This despite the fact that establishments are not always outwardly welcoming, at least to these western eyes.  The shoji are closed, windows papered – it’s sometimes difficult to see how full or how empty an establishment is… but the bright plastic food beckons, the exaggerated character mascot beguiles with its kawaii.

Mouth-watering Plastic

Orange rhinos in a pachinko parlour window

People, people, and more people!

Black-suited, dark-clad salarymen and salarywomen pounding the pavement, briefcases in one hand, flip-phones in another, pouring, pouring, pouring out of the concrete and glass and steel soaring high into the sky…

One wanders through the Dotonbori and the Shinsaibashi and Ebisubashi – paeans to capitalism – trying to figure out which direction the crowd flows at the moment – sometimes it’s the left side of the street; sometimes it’s the right.  Encounter too many souls walking in the opposite direction as yourself and make sure to switch lanes, stat.  People move fast in this town… there appears to be no dawdling.  I am also usually too impatient of dawdlers, except this time it’s I who want to slow down, to gawk, to take it all in, Fear of Missing Something has me a in a stifling embrace.  There are characters upon mascots upon weird kawaii figures with no initial obvious purpose (to me).

Kuromon Market on a Sunday morning

There are moments of relative calm – visiting the Kuromon market early on Sunday morning is ideal if you don’t like crowds.  Many stores are closed or just starting to open, but there are enough merchants available to grab a delicious breakfast of sushi and sashimi, or even tempura or oden if you desire.

DD with a handful of Rikuro Cheesecake

There are moments of utter maniacal glee – like the time DD hopped into a line for something he was not entirely sure of, except that the surrounding area smelled rich with butter.  His reward — Rikuro — a just-out-of-the oven steaming fluffy poufe of what the Japanese call a cheesecake the size of a pie with the thickness of a small pillow.  We ate it, giggling, in soft warm handfuls on the street near the Takayashima Department Store.

Tasty skewers and roasted/ grilled stuffs at Takashimaya Depaa-chika

Pristine Fish

Beautiful, gleaming former denizens of the sea

There are moments of awe and delight and greed and despair (“why don’t we have this where we live?!”). Wandering ‘round the Takashimaya depachika (department store basement) is an experience in and of itself, with food displays taken to an almost erotic level – food fetishists have come to the right place to be teased and titillated.  Mountains of yakitori, aisles and aisles of sushi and sashimi  – prepared for you or ready to be prepared by you, fish-eyes bright and glassy, flesh gorgeously wetly gleaming…

Takoyaki slingers at Creo-Ru, Dotonbori

And you can overdose on Takoyaki, as I did, chasing down the ever-elusive perfection of doughy, emphatically Osakian snack – outside slathered with brown sticky sweet salty sauce and perhaps topped with merely a sprinkling of negi and katsuo boshi; the inside nearly molten, surrounding that coveted jewel of chewy tako flesh.

Oh Osaka!  Your motto of kuiadore — “to eat yourself into rack and ruin” — is well deserved indeed.