Wandering through Osaka: Day 2

Colin and Matt already posted about today's events but I decided to pitch in and give my own perspective and photos of today. Ah before I begin, if you don't know who I am, I'm Bram a friend of Colin and Matt. I'm also the deviantart artist Samishii-Akuma if that is where you were directed from.

After staying awake for 15+ hours during the trip from Canada to Japan. I ended up really exhausted from it the plane flight but because of that I was able to avoid the dreaded Jet Lag ^^;

Matt's box of Pretz keeps an eye on any intruders coming into the room.

We first decided to go visit the shrine located at Sumiyoshi. After taking the local train there we were first greeted by rows of stone lanterns the lined the path towards the entrance of the shrine.

Here is Matt walking through one of the gate entrances leading into the shrine.

The shrine grounds gave off a really calm and relaxing atmosphere. Colin's probably thinking the same thing when I took this.

Many trees grow throughout the shrine area. Also green pay phones.

More stone lanterns dotted through the shrine grounds.

A stream ran through before the shrine. You had to cross a steep red bridge with narrow steps to enter the main temple area. Not fun if you wear large shoes XP

The stream had a large family of turtles living in it ^^

The gates to the main shrine grounds is part of a large wall that surrounds the temples.

Besides temples for praying for the blessings, they also had fortune drawing. We all decided to try it out. I guess I have some sense of luck =P

With the shrine visit done, we went back to the hostel to rest and have a melon bread lunch before heading off to Den-Den Town, the electronic shopping mecca of Osaka.

Located roughly ten minutes away from the Hostel. Its a shopping area where you can find many shops selling gadgets and video games. Like the more famous Akihabara shopping town in Tokyo, there are quite of few establishments with anime-oriented services and products.

We first went seeking out the retro game shops. They carried many out of print games and systems, most of which were made from before our time.


They're staring into your soul o_O


The outside of the Sofmap2 shop. Strangely it was the only shops with a anime-themed banner on it.

The shopping district also has its own idol-mascot character to promote the area.


After walking for several hours and through a bunch of stores. We ate some good old fashion Mcdonald's.

Being the risk taker I am I decided to try out their new Mega Teriyaki burger.

Imagine a Big Mac with all the burgers topped with lots of teriyaki sauce. Needless to say, the hamburger buns they used weren't meant to hold together something soggy. -_-;

We ended the day playing the board game Colin bought (sorry I'm a newbie, don't know the name =P). We're still playing as I'm posting this so I'll give you the end result tomorrow.