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| The Shinsekai District |
Date: 15 Sept 2015
Osaka, the food paradise of Japan and the second largest city in Japan. Many tourists spend only few days in Osaka often visiting the usual sites like Osaka Castle, Osaka Aquarium and Universal Studios, before rushing off to visit the nearby cultural cities of Kyoto and Nara. For the Unfit Runners, we are spending a grand total of 5 days at Osaka, intending to visit the sights and sounds that other tourists will usually bypass. Of course, the other objective is to try out all the best gourmet food which Osaka has to offer but that is another story best left to another day and another site, as SG Unfit Runner is after all a running site dedicated to all stuff related to running.
Our Air BnB apartment was conveniently located at the Namba district just beside
Den-Den Town.
Den-Den Town is the equivalent of
Akihabara of Tokyo and in my opinion, is much less touristy and has much more bargains to be found for those who are into all things geeky.
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| A Poster at Den Den Town |
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| Another poster at Den-Den Town |
Further south of Den-Den Town, lies another less visited gem of Osaka,
Shinsekai with whole streets of famous eateries including Japan's famous fugu (pufferfish) restaurants. As compared to the extremely famous, touristy and expensive
Dontonbori, we can find much better deals here.
In close proximity to Shinsekai are another two interesting sights, the
Spa World and
Tennoji Zoo. Spa World is pretty interesting as it operates like a Spa amusement park right at the heart of the city. They even have an giant
Attack of the Titan Colossal Titan at the top of the building to highlight the steamy aspect of the spa. For those who are unfamiliar with the hit Titan series, the Colossal Titan always makes an appearance accompanied by lots and lots of steam. Over at the horizon, the tallest building in Japan, the
Abenobashi Terminal Building looms over the horizon.
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| The Colossal Titan head peeping out from Spa World |
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| Tennoji Zoo |
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| Abenobashi Terminal Building. Tallest building in Japan |
The run at Osaka around the Nipponbashi area has been extremely rewarding and interesting. The vehicular traffic during the early morning has been light and there is little trouble running across the traffic junctions around Osaka. There are always something new and interesting to see and I will strongly recommend any visitors to head out on an exploratory run early in the morning, to check out potential eating places and interesting attractions often left out in the tourist guide. There are also many potential running routes around Osaka which I will be keen to explore the next time around. As compared to Tokyo's Shinjuku, which I will touch on in a later post, I prefers the exploratory run around Osaka.
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