Osaka (Day 4) - Nishishinsaibashi / Umeda / Shinsekai
After a massive day in Kyoto, we're in no hurry this morning. Still on mission of figuring out Japanese breakfast, we find an actual breakfast establishment! Cafes usually just sell coffee and a couple of pastry selections, breakfast cafes don't really seem to be a thing here. We head out on foot and arrive at Eggs & Things. Sounds pretty breakfasty, although they're pretty big on eggs on dishes here (which we're pretty happy about) so who knows.
We line up for a few minutes and there's a couple of loud American tourists behind us who refer to this area as 'American Village'. We're shown to our tables and see the theme is Hawaiian, as was the restaurant next door. The menu options are pretty American, in that everything comes with a side of home fries, which is roast potato basically. Courts is ecstatic, Jeff just wants something healthy. The breakfast is OK and healthy - ish, in comparison to the girls at the table across from us who ordered pancakes which came with a mountain of whipped cream 3 feet high.
Time to take in the views of Osaka (again). On the way to the train station we check out this 'American Village'. It's a bunch of shops and markets selling dodgy American style clothes and things, similar to the sort of stuff you'd see at the Royal Adelaide Show. We hightail it outta there.
A short train ride later and we're at the Umeda Sky building. We head to the top where there's an outdoor observatory deck. We take in the 360 degree views of Osaka and then head back to the safety of indoors and pull up a chair and watch the view from one level down by a window in the sun.
We spend a couple of hours reading and snoozing there, still recovering from our massive day out the day before. We notice on the river side down below a number of baseball fields with people playing. It really feels like Baseball is the national sport here - another indication of how much impact Western culture has had here.
Next stop is an Aussie themed pub, the Coolabah. Did we mention it's the first round of AFL and it's been a long off-season and we're footy tragics? We're here to watch Fremantle's first game at home, hosting North Melbourne. The game does not disappoint. The Dockers pump the Kangas and we're able to cheer along with another couple from Perth who are Freo members. The game was magnificent, the pub was.... how can I describe this place? As we enter we find an older looking bloke passed out on the couch. We later find out he's the owner (in Japan, it's not illegal to drink whilst on the job at a bar, and it looks like this relaxed rule has taken its toll on this guy). He was eventually roused by the other staff and promptly got back on the sauce, much to the chagrin of one of his Japanese staff. Unfortunately, he was a Kangas supporter and could barely construct a sentence, he was that piss-maggot drunk. Although he was able to make some sense by informing us that "Nat Fyfe is an absolute legend. Best player to have played the game ever". He told us this about 16 times though. He harassed us every time Freo scored (which ways frequently) and eventually fell over, got shown the door by his own staff, then came back in again and passed out again on the same couch because they couldn't get him home (no taxi would take him, I'd assume). We at least got to watch the second half in peace. Our only hopes is that no Japanese local ever goes to that pub and thinks that's what all Australian's are like. There's one in every pub though, unfortunately.
We say goodbye to our Perth comrades, shake off the dirtiness of the Coolabah and head off to dinner. Tonight we're eating in Shinsekai. We get there via Osaka's version of Akihabara. We check out some cool shops and keep scanning the capsule machines for anything cool (yes, we're hooked).
Shinsekai is not a very big district, in that it only has one relatively short main strip where its all hip, hop and happening. Again we are reminded of a being at a Royal Show.
We're pretty certain the food is going to be average quality, but representative of cheap Japanese eats. The food isn't too bad, we finally sample some Takoyaki (deep fried balls of octopus)... It's ok. We order too much food and the beer is huge. We head home stuffed and ready for bed.
