Yodobashi

I was getting this post ready, but then the final stop, Hong Kong, didn't have very reliable internet. Before traveling to Osaka we met a friend and I asked her what she thought was good in Osaka and what was there to do. She said, "people there speak different than from Tokyo, it's Kansai area." I wondered if there were different dialects of Japanese, but before I could ask she said, "They speak too loud. They talk more ... they talk too much."

Ideas for what to do with my VW bus.

I found Osaka to be a friendly town. After awhile I realized that I was the most dangerous looking person on the subway. I needed to establish my public role, everyone seems to have a distinct public role. Every day I saw Salaryman, School Girl, Retirees, hipsters, and shoppers (shopper is definately a role) on subway. All I had to do was whip out my English subway map and review my last pictures on my camera and every body was at ease, ah ...tourist, most likely American tourist.
Interesting thing about Osaka, it's kind of like Bladerunner, only nice and friendly. It's very layered, subways, walkovers, whole shopping malls built under elevated train tracks. And here you see the power of the all mighty corporations and where all the Salarymen work. We rode in on a Hankyu train from Kyoto which came into their own train station, next to the Hankyu department store, next to the Hankyu hotel, the Hankyu business highrise, and ground level shopping mall all sitting right next to the main public subway system. Not to be out done, their friendly rival Hanshin had the same set up basically right across the street with a train station, hotel, office building, department store and shopping mall and to do one better, they had their own baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, the pride of Osaka. Yes in Japan, the corporate name goes on the team, not the ballpark. I think it's the same with salarymen, once you put on that white shirt and dark navy suit, you ain't changing teams. (Now that I think of it, I never saw a colored shirt other than white under a suit, and 90% of all ties were stripped)


Happy White Day! I had to look this up in Wikipedia. Apparently creating Valentines Day was not enough and so White Day was created for 30 days after Valentines Day.

On Valentines Day, the women give choc. and sweets to all the men in their lives. Boyfriends and husbands get the good stuff, while office acquaintances get "courtesy" choc. 30 days later, the man responses with actual gifts of a white nature, for example, if boy friend, white lingerie. According to Wikipedia, the return gift should to be three times the value of the chocolate gift given.

Very civilized. Soft close lid, heated seat, heated spray water, self cleaning, I think this one had a motion sensor.

Right in between the Hankyu and Hanshin monopoly mega plex was a Yodobashi Camera store. Camera should really be put in quotes, they may have started out with cameras but now sell everything you can think of that you can plug in. Ten floors of electronics and appliances and media and parts are on sale including the toilet seat of your dreams.

I couldn't get an actual picture of this rice cooker because they had someone stationed right next to it, so I settled for its brochure. The mere fact that a rice cooker has a glossy brochure required a second look. The picture I was trying to get was of the price tag. This little baby goes for 79,900 yen. That's approximately $880.00. For a rice cooker. That better be some damn good rice.