We strolled the Dōtombori neighborhood yesterday. Divided by a canal, It’s a very commercial part of town, and to say that in Osaka means we encountered block after block of outrageous signage.
The first stop after surfacing from the metro was to join Japanese families posing in front of the Glico Running Man sign. It’s apparently the thing to do before crossing the bridge into the Dōtombori shopping arcade.
Inside the arcade, we stopped to visit a Japanese woodblock museum. The prints on exhibit were from the 19th century. In small frames, there were colorfully etched scenes of royal processions and samurai and geishas profiled on arched bridges. The stylized women in the prints wearing intricately brocaded kimonos all had elongated faces which in Japanese art are traditionally an idealized depiction of beauty. Hard to get used to unless you’re in a Modigliani frame of mind. We weren’t allowed to photograph any of the woodblock prints except for the two famous Hokusai copies on the wall of the gift shop.
Back out by the Tambori Riverwalk we took a boat cruise up and down the canal. It was nice to sit back and catch the flamboyant signs as we floated by, but apparently the boating view is more spectacular at night with the water reflecting all the commercial light. Getting out of the boat, we stopped by Kani Dorāku Honten, the seafood restaurant notable for its animatronic crab sign.
Then we hit the Sennichi-mae arcade where there’s a big fish market with stall after stall offering to grill the fresh catch on the spot.
Behind the display counters of the fish stalls there were small tables where people could sit and eat. Sashimi, sushi, tempura, teriyaki, each stall had its cooking specialty along with a particular fish—salmon, tuna, eel, you name it.
And the market wasn’t only devoted to fish. Kobe beef was a big item, as were kiwi and strawberries.
We had eaten a large breakfast, so we weren’t all that hungry, but we couldn’t resist getting an enormous fish cracker the size of a large pizza. Ella will relate the experience.
When we returned to the hotel, we had our clean laundry (the muddy Kumano Koto clothing sent out that morning) delivered to our room. Each item—socks, T-shirts, underwear, pants—was pressed and individually wrapped in plastic. I felt bad about opening the laundry packages and disturbing the just-purchased let’s-slide-this-under-the-Christmas-tree aura.