Japan Trip day 9: First day in Osaka

Yuuki took me to the station on my last day in Himeji, and we took a last photo together. Then I headed straight to Osaka taking the limited express train which took about 45 minutes.

  

When I arrived in Osaka, I took a photo, and then found a stamp which I used to stamp my sketchbook with the Osaka station stamp.

 

It took me a bit to find the hotel as I had to transfer from the JR lines to the Ueno subway and take the Midousuji line to Nanba where my hotel was. It took a little orientation at first, but after getting out of the station it didn’t take too long to find the hotel again, since I had stayed there the previous time.

After checking in to the hotel, I decided to go straight to den den town, the electronics and anime area of Osaka.

I entered one of the softmap stores, and found they had a floor dedicated to MIDI instruments including new and 2nd hand music making gear. Since I’m starting to learn the keyboard, this was like heaven.. although I still can’t play very much, so I decided just to take a few photos and not buy anything until I get to the point where I can read and play music from music sheets without too much trouble. I never knew much about music making, but seeing all this stuff has really opened up my eyes to this new hobby. Apart from keyboards, it seems you can connect and use electric guitars, drums and even wind instruments to a PC to record and compose music.

After checking out the softmap store, I went to check out some of the anime stores and also went for lunch. I took some photos from one of the anime stores.

I ate at a ramen resturant and ordered some shio ramen. It came with a free extra mini dish, so I got the croquette on rice.

Some photos of Ota-Road in den-den town and the various stores there.

 

A full sized anime style doll inside the Kotobukiya store.

 

Photos of the displays at Azone International, a popular doll company.

Some anime figures on display at the Kotobukiya store. Kotobukiya is one of my favourite makers of figures.

Another closeup on the full scale doll, and this time one of a full scale halo as well.

If you don’t know much about den den town, you can visit the information centre. I just went there to grab a map.

This is my room in Business Hotel Nissei. It’s quite cozy although a bit small.

Back in den-den town.. and whoa! That K-on garage kit that I bought of Mio for about 9000 yen ($110AU) was selling for 68,000 yen!!! ($750AU~).

I also found a huge sign in Melon books advertising the White clover book I bought for myself and a friend. I also visited Lashingbang and saw 2 dollfie dream dolls which were quite tempting. Especially since the prices were quite cheap there. I finished the trip by taking a photo of the Volks building and then went for dinner.

 

Dinner was at Mc Donalds to try out burgers I’ve never tried before like the Ebi fillet-o which is a fried patty made of prawns. Yum!
Since the burger was tiny, I also ordered a piece of pepper chicken too.

 

I noticed that there was a hotel closer to den-den town. I spent the night at the video arcades playing Melty Blood: Actress Again. It’s the sequel to a game that my friend, Mac, gave me a copy of previously. It is a 2d fighter game and I like playing as Len or Yumiduka Satsuki. I managed to finish the game using Len and ended up using only about 3 credits to complete the game where each credit was only 50 yen. So hours of fun for under 200 yen.

The other guys playing there were hardcore and were playing versus games doing insane combos on each other and so on. I wouldn’t even stand a chance against them.
I then headed back to the hotel.