Roving Japan

Day 50 Photoset

Osaka is an ugly, polluted city, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have some charm.

We walked a lot today. Spending time in Dotomburi (where we took yesterdays river cruise), “America Town” and “Electric Town”.

We first wandered into “America Town”, home of many clothing stores selling clothes that Japanese people think Americans wear. It’s pretty much all brightly colored graphic t-shirts and worn jeans.

I was really hoping that in AMERICA town, I’d get to eat some AMERICAN food. It seemed logical, but I didn’t get my hopes up too high. Not counting McDonalds, there was only one restaurant claiming to serve American food. I took some pictures to show what Japanese people consider to be “American”.

For some reason, the Japanese seem incapable of making hamburgers. Instead, they sell hamburger patties with toppings, but no buns. The left half of the menu is all hamburger patties with toppings.
Classics like: “Iowa Side Up Story, Shalyapin Burg” and don’t forget “Juicy Crossroads By Westside, Curry Burg”

I’m not going to complain about the quality of the patties, but I just don’t understand why these places don’t sell actual hamburgers. If you want a burger in sandwich form, you are forced to go to a crappy fast food place like Mos Burger, Freshness Burger, or a couple other McDonalds clones. People seem to like burgers since those places exist, but the quality blows.

Anyway, after my face palm in front of the “American” cafe, we walked to the central park of America town. Here we stumbled upon some guys setting up what looked like a boxing ring. I asked the guy what was happening, and he told me “Puro Resu” (Pro Wrestling). At first I said, “Like, Sumo?” He thought for a second and said… “Ya… like sumo.” I could tell I was wrong but he didn’t know how to answer me, so I said, “Or is it more like WWF?” He smiled and said, “Yes! Yes! Like that!”

The show was due to begin in less than an hour, so we looked at some shops, and then returned in time to get front row seats to the most awesome wrestling I’ve ever seen. These guys were great.

Originally scheduled to compete in the opening match was Michael Jackson… but he was unavailable… So, they had to scratch that match.

The first match was a classic match up of the evil guys vs the good guys. While slow starting, it got pretty good with some excellent throws, flips, and a ton of chest slaps. Eventually the evil team won, creating a feud between the good guys. The feud ended with the younger guy challenging the champ to a 1-on-1 match to be held after the main event….

“The Dickbombers” vs “Lion Heart” and some guy in a swimming outfit.

The Dickbombers were gay cowboys who get their power by butt humping each other. They took immediate interest in the swimming boy, taking every opportunity to feel him up.

The funniest point in the match was when one of the Dickbombers kidnapped the swimming boy and took him back to the van. Then the van started rocking while the announcer yelled about how this shouldn’t be happening. After a long absence, the swimming boy escaped the van and ran back to the ring wearing all sorts of S&M gear. It was hilarious.

From America town we went through Dotomburi on our way to Den-Den town or “Electric Town”. This is where you go in Osaka for all the cool nerdy stuff like video games, tvs, gadgets, anime, toys etc…

We went to a couple cool stores, but the main store I wanted to see was called “Super Potato”. My cousin had mentioned that this store was a mecca of classic gaming, so I wanted to go there and see what the hype was about.

Super Potato sells basically everything. They have games from all eras and mostly excellent prices. They have rack after rack of old Famicoms, Super Famicoms, Dreamcasts etc… I was even able to find Chrono Trigger for $6!

We were in this part of town until the sun went down, then wandered back to Dotomburi to look at the lights before heading back to the hotel.

All in all, Osaka was a much more fun experience on foot. The different neighborhoods are still pretty ugly during the day, but taking more time to explore paid off. Be sure to check out the photoset for today.