We spent our last day (Sunday) in Akihabara, Tokyos electronic town. I can only recommend this spot for people who are into video games, anime, etc.
There isn't a store I want to talk about. If you are there you just have to roam through the streets and will surely find something amazing. And don't be shy to explore different floors of the buildings.
When we were there on Sunday, the road was closed, so people could walk all over the place. This is really great. Like this you can see all the ads, that are on the buildings.
We also had a strange encounter there. Not only we, but most of the Japanese as well. We saw a small group of middle aged Japanese men on the street and all of them were cross dressing (they were dressed as women). They were cosplaying there favourite characters. One was dressed as a maid, another one wore a really really short miniskirt... Not something you get to see in Germany.
On the next day we left our ryokan and went to Tokyo Station to take the Shinkansen to Osaka. We have a JR Pass, so it's free for us to go by the Shinkansen (not all). For the ride to Osaka we also reserved some seats in the front of a wagon. We have three big suitcases with us and you never know where to put them if you don't have a seat in the front or at the back, because only there is enough space for big luggage.
It took us three hours to reach the Shinkansen station Shin-Osaka and another hour to find hour hostel (JHoppers Osaka). We have a "big", clean room with a western bed. No more sleeping on the floor. ^-^
Because we are staying at a hostel, we have to share the toilets and showers with everyone. The only disadvantage here is, that the hostel has thin walls. Furthermore, we have a ventilation grid in our door. So we can hear everything that happens on the floor.
Today was our first day in Osaka. We went to Namba. This is in the south of Osaka. We went to the American district, but we were too early. Most of the shops open after 11 o'clock. We were there around 10am. The
Mandarake opens at 12pm :(
Still, I wasn't really interested in the shops there. Most of them were selling hip hop clothes.
So we went on to Namba Station. We went to the shop "Don Quijote". It's like "Donki" in Akihabara. They sell everything there! From food, to cleaning stuff, to sex toys, to jewelery.
After that we went to Dotonbori and looked at the
Glico-man and the hosts for a while. For those of you who don't know: You can find many many host cafés in the Dotonbori area. In a host café young, beautiful man cater to women. Most of the time the woman ends up paying for all the drinks ;)
The hosts stand in the streets and try to pursuade women to come to their cafés and have a good time.
After that we went to the Kuromon Market. It's near Nipponbashi Station. You can go there for cheap, local eating places. We had some homemade udon (thick noodles) there and takoyaki (octopus balls). We also bought some delicious tsukemono (pickled vegetables) and Japanese sweets like
ichigo daifuku.
Then we went down Sakai-suji Ave. The area's name is DenDen Town. It's like a small Akiba. At the end of DenDen Town, there's the Shinsekai area. We went to see the
Tsutenkaku Tower there. Unfortunately, most of the shops were closed in this area.
Today was the first day we met some Germans. First was a girl from Cologne. She is here on holidays with her family. We also met a Japanese woman, who had been living in Vienna and Pfortzheim for 20 years. Her German was still very good.
For dinner we had Ramen (noodle soup), fried rice and Gyoza (meat dumplings) in a small Chinese restaurant near our hostel. It was so small, it was like we were sitting inside of the old couple's living room. They were really friendly and the food was very very good.
