Osaka Entertainment
As a bustling retail haven, shopping aficionados will be at ease here and can loose themselves in the endless markets and electronic gadget shops. For something rather more culturally infused, the city offers musical theatres, visiting opera and ballet groups and some top-notch nightlife options, while the Japanese cuisine on offer is beautifully decorated as well as delicious.
Eating out
There is a Japanese saying that goes: dress [in kimonos] until you drop in Kyoto, eat until you drop in Osaka. Osakan regional cuisine includes okonomiyaki (pan-fried batter cake), takoyaki (octopus dumplings) and udon (a noodle dish) as well as regional sushi and other traditional Japanese foods. It has been said that in order to succeed in the Osaka food service business, the food must taste above-average, have larger servings than normal, be inexpensive and fast.
With about 118,000 foreign residents registered in the city, there is plenty of choice for international cuisine as well as traditional Japanese dishes. Osakas 91,500 Korean residents are mainly concentrated around Ikuno Ward, where a famous Korean town, Tsuruhashi, is located. Visitors with a taste for Korean barbeque restaurants will not be disappointed, with many charging reasonable rates per set.
International buffets at the citys major hotels such as the Nikko, Grand Hyatt Regency and Rhiga Royal are popular. Meanwhile, dont forget to visit Dotonbori, the city's best known food district, located in the centre of Osaka, within walking distance of Kintetsu Namba Station.
Theatre and music
It may well lack the pockets of beauty and refinement found in nearby Kyoto, but beyond the unrelenting concrete cityscape, Osaka is a vibrant metropolis, inhabited by famously easy-going citizens with a taste for the good things in life. Located on Nakanoshima Island, Festival Hall can seat up to 2,700 people. This is the pre-eminent music theatre in the region and it hosts a wide range of musical performances. Adjacent to it is the smaller, multi-purpose Recital Hall, which accommodates up to 560 people.
Osaka Koseinenkin Kaikan is a multi-purpose hall, which often hosts concerts by famous performers from overseas. Namba Hatch, in the main ward of the octagonal Minatomachi River Place, one of the biggest music theatres of its kind in Japan, with standing room for 1,500 people. It promotes shows by both up-and-coming artists and big names. For classical music, there is Symphony Hall, where many of the world's leading musicians and soloists have performed. For jazz lovers, there are a number of live jazz venues around the city including Osaka Blue Note, which showcases the finest jazz talent from Japan and overseas.
Major opera and ballet companies, from Europe and North America, visit Osaka on a regular basis. Most of their productions are staged at Festival Hall. Occasionally, travelling troupes put on Broadway musicals at Festival Hall or Koseinenkin Kaikan.
Dtombori is Osaka's liveliest nightlife area. It centres around Dtombori-gawa and Dtombori Arcade.
Shopping
Osaka has a myriad of markets, shopping arcades, department stores, boutiques and malls of every kind. Many of the world's top designers have opened boutiques throughout the chic and trendy districts of Kita and Minami, and all along the lovely Mido-Suji Avenue. High-class boutiques and brand outlets are also based in many shopping malls in Osaka and in leading hotel arcades. The America-Mura and Nishi Horie areas feature hip, trendy fashions for young people.
There are seven leading department stores in Osaka including the Hankyu Department Store and Hanshin Department Store based in Umeda. The latter sells merchandise for the nearby baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers. Daimaru operates two stores in Osaka: the Daimaru Umeda Department Store is above JR Osaka Station and the Art Deco-flavoured Daimaru Shinsaibashi Department Store is on Mido-Suji Avenue.
The Osaka branch of Takashimaya, one of the country's oldest department store chains, is in Namba. It has brand name shops, imported cosmetics and fragrances, and interior furnishings. Mitsukoshi Department Store's Osaka branch has the elegant atmosphere of its flagship stores in Tokyo's Ginza and Nihonbashi. The Kintetsu Abeno Department Store is in Tennoji and has 11 floors of shops, with a wide selection of fresh food, fashion, antiques and toys.
Umeda also has four underground malls and three main arcades. Malls range from HEP Navio and its collection of top-class fashion boutiques to Loft Umeda, a place to purchase interior goods and sundries. Shinsaibashi and Namba offer unlimited shopping at their four mall complexes and four underground malls. The newest mall is Namba Parks, with its fine selection of over 100 specialty shops and restaurants.
Since ancient times, Osaka's commercial economy has made it the ideal place for markets of all kinds. There are a number of wholesale districts and markets located throughout the city.
The Sennichimae Doguya-Suji is a unique market for restaurateurs, featuring everything from professional kitchen utensils to table settings and dining room fixtures. Tachibana-Dori Street is an arcade of stylish furniture stores. Also known as Orange Street, it is popular with newlyweds. Matsuyamachi has shops that deal in traditional Japanese dolls and toys.
Biggest of all the wholesale areas is the impressive Osaka Municipal Central Wholesale Market, located across from the western tip of Nakanoshima, where the Dojimagawa and Tosaborigawa rivers merge. Here you will find all kinds of fresh seafood, meat and produce.