Stomach Town Osaka

Osaka, the second-largest city in Japan

Osaka is the second-largest city in Japan. Osaka people are proud of their background and history. Once Osaka was the largest and the most prosperous city in Japan, a famous merchants' city. It was about 400 yeas ago and Kyoto, beside Osaka, was the capitol city where the Emperor lived. At that time, there was a historical domestic war between the west wing (Osaka) and the east wing (Edo, now Tokyo). Unluckily, Osaka was defeated and Edo became the metropolis of Japan by Tokugawa-Shogun (Tycoon). But after that time, Osaka merchants have been keeping that they were truly the best business people and still they keep business mind with very frank and tough talks.

Osaka has a lot of good foods

Another but most popular feature of Osaka is, there are a lot of good foods and they are less expensive compared with Tokyo. This is also Osaka people are proud of and Tokyo people agree, so do I. But there are some differences among foods between Osaka and Tokyo. For example, if we talk about the noodle, Osaka prefers "Udon" but Tokyo prefers "Soba". The taste of needle soup is also different. Osaka prefers right but Tokyo prefers thick heavy. Talking of Sushi, "Nigiri-zushi" (or just Sushi) means Tokyo style sushi. Some people call it "Edo-mae Zushi" (Edo is the former name of Tokyo). Anyway, there are more delicious foods in Osaka and the price is cheaper than Tokyo (generally speaking), it is wonderful.

AS Osaka people are frank in general, the advertisements of restaurants or foods are interesting and funny. Fore example, you may find a huge fish, octopus, crab, shrimp and others. Some of them are moving (by robotic mechanisms). I hope you enjoy some of them.

Contrast of the new and the old

Tokyo people say that Osaka is more noisy and rough than Tokyo. But there is the same kind of places in Tokyo too. It depends on the areas. You may find quiet and old places in Osaka too. They are only one block away from the main streets. The contrast is interesting in such a big city. I hope you will visit and enjoy Osaka sometime!

fumi.kobayashi@nifty.com