Dōtonbori

-
Bright lights, big city. I thought Tokyo was one bright metropolis already... Until I saw Osaka's Dōtonbori district. The place was also bright! There were huge billboards everywhere! Even with the rain, it was such a happy place to visit. It somehow reminded me of Hong Kong, only more eclectic. 



Some of the more interesting sights were the eccentric advertisements, like this one, the gigantic Kani Dōraku crab. It's known to be a moving crab robot but I didn't see it. Without understanding the Japanese text, I knew instantly that this is a restaurant that serves crab. No-go for Rochie here.


This one's the Meiji billboard. The guy in the billboard is known as Karl Ojisan. If there's one regret I have during this trip, it is this: I didn't hoard Meiji chocolate bars because I couldn't risk going over the baggage weight limit.


I found this octopus near the giant crab. I'm not sure what to make of it because it seems that the octopus is frying something but is holding a dessert wrapped in chocolate too. Plus, the octopus is right under the Konamon Museum's sign. Why'd an octopus be at a museum?!



Now this one's not difficult to notice among all the animal signs because it is of a hand holding a huge maguro nigirizushi (tuna sushi). I just wonder if the hand and the sushi move, just like the crab.


A pity that the only time I was in this area was late into the night. I would have loved to actually go into the shops and see the fully lit robotic signs. But, in any case, I got my shot of the Glico Man, Asahi, and the other icons of Dōtonbori district. I want to drop by this place once again someday.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more