Amerikamura: Osaka's version of America

We woke up last Saturday a little late. After an evening of drinking and quiet Kyoto-style debauchery, there was no way we were going to do anything too early. Instead, we chose to make our way over to Osaka around 1:00pm, with plans to visit Amerikamura (Osaka’s obscure version of America).

On the way over, we debated making it all the way to Kobe instead to see a baseball game. Thankfully, we made the wise decision to not spend what was left of our late-start day on the train, and just went to Osaka instead.

Osaka is an interesting place, or at least what we saw of it. Keep in mind that it was a poorly planned trip, where we just sort of got on and off the train, but Osaka is not our favorite city. A bit dirty, and really big, the city is polar opposite of Kyoto.

Osaka is also a much more liberal city than Kyoto. In Kyoto you will almost never see anyone wearing anything risqué and I (Meg) have gotten several dirty looks for wearing shirts that are cut remotely low (keep in mind that I don’t wear much in the way of risqué clothing, nothing see-through, no short skirts or shorts, and nothing low-cut by American standards –I dress like your typical androgynous college kid…even though I’m no longer in college or a kid). Anyways, in Osaka anything apparently goes clothing-wise. They even have an American Apparel…I mean porn store…I mean American Apparel…Hard to tell the difference sometimes. So it was shocking going from a month in conservative Kyoto to a day in wild Osaka. We saw more peek-a-boo butt cheeks and mid-drift tummies than I have seen in my lifetime.

Kev and Turfy the racehorse made a great pair

Entrance to a hotel...we are not sure why

Kitschy hotel in Osaka. Apparently for as tacky as this place looks, this style of cutesy hotel is actually pretty decent. 

Another classic English shirt..I mean I guess this wasn't isn't actually that bad "speaking-wise" it's really just the fact that it's like "Hey fatty, fatty, 2-by-4...go back to the kitchen"

The trademark of Amerikamura, the mini-statue of liberty

The streets here are also amazingly dirty in comparison to Kyoto (again this may have just been the areas we went to). We have heard from several people that Osaka is considered the dirty city of the three major cities (Tokyo and Kyoto being the other two). But between the disgusted facial expressions and not nice things to say, everyone seems to have been to Osaka at some point, so we took their warnings with a grain of salt.

We made our way over to Amerikamura to check it out, and it is definitely an experience. We aren’t completely sure what we experienced, as it is nothing like actual America, but it was worth checking out as you walk through to other more interesting things in Osaka.

We also tried conveyor belt sushi for the first time, and it was ok. We have definitely had way better sushi, but in a pinch this made for a decent lunch.