We're at Dotonbori!
This is the most famous part of Osaka
That you might recognise from pictures
There's the famous Glico running man sign
And all the bright lights
It's like the equivalent of Piccadilly
But in Osaka
There's loads of places to eat
Loads going on
There's so many people here
Not in this section
But further along, it's really busy
So let's see what there is!
In this video
We're going to an amazing gyoza place
We'll see a view of the city from an unusual shaped ferris wheel
There's j-pop groups performing on the street
And I'll show you around the bright lights of Dotonbori
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For more things to do in Osaka
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We're walking along Dotonbori
It's dinner time
It's getting dark
And it's really crazy, it's so busy!
There's so many people here
And big queues outside all the restaurants
We're going along to an izakaya
That we saw earlier
That had some veggie options
That looked pretty good
I just can't believe how many people are here
It's crazy!
I ordered the grilled Awaji onion with ponzu
They let me pick which one I wanted
From this basket
And then I got the Japanese super fresh potato
Deep fried
And I could pick the potato as well!
I've got the apple highball
Which on the menu
Is home-made
And it's highly recommended
I saw the guy get out a really big tank full of it
It is pretty good
It's pretty strong actually
Also the apple in my apple highball
Is really delicious
I don't know if it's a variety of apple we don't have in the UK
It just tasted really good
Arigatou gozaimasu
Here's the gyoza
It says on the chopstick holder:
Specialty gyoza with rock salt
Taste good! Recommend!
If you like sauce
Eat it with vinegar soy sauce & chilli oil
They've got it on the table
Is it just fried chicken?
Yes, with yuzu
Taking your food pics Phil?
Yuzu fried chicken
And yuzu flavoured everything is always good
I've ordered a lemon sour
They gave me this
The sour, maybe?
That's got some in the bottom
And the lemon to squeeze
And I've got to mix it all together
Did we order too much?
Maybe...
It's all arriving now
Here's my fried potato
The potato I picked earlier
It's got ketchup with it
So I know it's definitely fresh
And here's my onion
It's been cooked - looks good
You picked the biggest potato, that's your problem
Well, you wouldn't pick the smallest one, would you?
It's good!
Everyone's ordering more than one order of gyoza
It says "How many orders do you need?"
"Recommend one person more than one order"
It's only 280 yen
For 6 gyoza
It's pretty good
And they are big
They're not small gyoza
Good size gyoza
That was really good!
And a really fun experience
It was good to go to a little place like that
I didn't think we'd get to
Because most of them only serve meat
And don't have any vegetarian options
They did have some gyoza that they said
Were made of Japanese vegetables
But then I freaked out at last minute
Because they had an allergy card at the back
And it said they contain pork
So I went for the onion & potato instead
Which is kind of a weird meal
But it tasted really good
And the onion was really nice
With the yuzu sauce
That was really tasty
And that apple highball
Was really good as well
It was good
I drank some apple highball
And I never drink spirits because I hate them
But it tasted delicious
It was like appletizer
It was really good
This area of Dotonbori
Is a lot quieter than the main area just down there
This road is parallel to the river
But it's one road back
To the south
The place is called Oh Gyoza
It says "Specialty gyoza: Gyoza oh!"
And it's so crowded down there
But this bit's really quiet
But the restaurant was full up the whole time anyway
Just a really fun experience!
I'm glad we went there!
We said earlier the place we wanted to go
Was right by this Dotonbori sign
But there's actually several of them
Along the road so that wasn't much help!
Look there's plushie sushi outside this place!
And hanging up there!
Here's the garden we saw earlier!
*thunder*
This boat you can see coming along
Is the Dotonbori River Cruise
It's a 20 minute cruise
I think it's 700 yen
It goes up and down Dotonbori
So you can get a nice view of all the lights
And everything going on
We're walking along by the riverside
There's also a road parallel to this
That has loads of restaurants, bars & things
That was the one that was crammed with people earlier
I think this octopus has something up with his eye!
Is it weird that an octopus is holding a takoyaki?
Which is made of cooked octopus?
There's a lot of people watching something over here
They've got glow sticks
Like at a j-pop concert
Arigatou gozaimashita!
Imagine if it was Dempagumi Inc down there!
That would be awesome
We're going on the ferris wheel
On Don Quijote
It's not a normal ferris wheel
It goes straight up
Then over and then straight down
It's been closed for a while
But it just opened up again this year
This charm represents the safety of the family
Very nice
Each of them have different lucky charms
We're safety of the family!
That says: "Have fun!"
We're twisting round!
So we're not going to be in the open air
There's a bubble there to keep us safe
This is the world's first elliptical ferris wheel
Really?
The first one that goes straight up, across and then down
Did you read some information boards while you were waiting?
I just know everything
No, I did
We're quite high already
Because we started a few floors up in Don Quijote
We're going straight up!
Just tip us totally over
And then drop us
Like the tower of terror
We've got a view out the back now
We've gone over the top of Don Quijote
This building's quite cool
The one with the man's face on it?
You can see a lot further now
We're just starting to turn
What's that noise?!
It's the motors keeping us level
So it tips us a bit
Then it compensates
Oh yeah, we're rotating!
It stopped now
It could just rotate you all the way round
What kind of ride is this?!
That pool looks nice, in that hotel!
There's no one in there
We could spy on people in the pool
This is a good view
Maybe that's where we were yesterday
In Umeda
There were a lot of red flashing lights over there
There's this tower over there
You see the pink?
I wonder what that is?
There's a lot of tall building around us
So perhaps that's Umeda
That's north... no south...
North is that way, I think that way's north
I think that way's south
Quickly find out!
Who's right??
What did you say that way is?
I think that way is north
South!
You said North!
Actually it's south
It is south
You can't just steal my opinion
That way is south
Yeah, I agree it's south
Agree?!
Now it's been proven
This is a better view than I expected
To start off with, we couldn't see anything
And now we can see all the buildings
Bowling pin on top of the building!
Ooh party boat!
Someone doing karaoke!
Someone trying to talk on his phone there!
"Someone's singing! I can't hear you!"
"Ship of fools"
Ooh, we're rotating!
Here we are
There we are, that's what we were on
The ferris wheel on Don Quijote
Look there's a pirates cruise
I wonder what happens on that
It's actually a lot quieter here
If you walk right by the river
Than the road that's parallel to this
Where all the restaurants are
He's actually moving!
We're back on the busy street that had all the restaurants on it
American style Elvis bar
Spiderman's after the beef
And the - clams?
Or whatever that is
Muscle or clam
Scallop?
It's not Kobe beef anyway!
It's not Kobe beef
Look at this big honey toast
And a fancy chandelier
There's a big queue of people here
What are they waiting for?
Okonomiyaki
Is that a special one?
Chibo Okonomiyaki
There's always a massive queue of people
Waiting for Ichiran Ramen
Wherever we've seen it
There's always so many people
I don't even know if it's the best ramen
But they seem to do a good job marketing
Because lots of people want to go there
There's a few street food stalls as well
There's a Kobe beef stand
Takoyaki I think
Maybe yakitori as well
There's ice cream
And over there: yaki-pon
Looks like chestnuts
There's more down there!
Lots to eat
There's so many people
And so much going on
And so many things to eat
That's just a side street
Off this main shopping arcade we're walking down
There's a big queue for somewhere there
I assume it's a restaurant
There's people eating takoyaki while they're in the queue to eat
I know they say Osaka's all about the food but...!
There's not just one crab
There's another one here!
And a dragon up there
This is crazy!
Do you want that plate of gyoza Phil?
Could you finish it?
We're in an arcade with the UFO catchers
And downstairs
People are doing actual fishing
In water
With real fish I guess
There's so many takoyaki stands
That's an Osaka thing
As well as okonomiyaki
And kushiyaki
All the unhealthy fried things
Are the local Osakan foods
Live on Dotonbori!
Look how many people are here!
There's a mini version of the ferris wheel we went on!
We didn't see the famous Glico sign
I can't believe we didn't see it
Apparently it's right there
It's behind us!
It was on the opposite side to what I expected!
It's right over there!
I really thought it was going to be on that side!
We walked past it earlier
And I pointed up
I thought it was supposed to be something that stuck out
I didn't realise it was that thing
There it is
I really felt like it was going to be on the other side
Now we're in Osaka
Leg as well
See the lady up there?
It feels peaceful
We just got back to the hotel
It was still really loud outside
So I thought I'd come in here to talk to you
What an experience!
I think if you're going to Osaka
You've got to go to Dotonbori
That basically is Osaka
It felt like the whole city was there just now
There were so many people!
Walking around, so much going on
The atmosphere was really bustling
It was an amazing experience
So many things to eat
Before we came here
When I was researching what there is to do in Osaka
All I could find was
Basically lots of things to eat
And the foods that the city's famous for
And that was what a lot of people were doing out there on Dotonbori
I think if there is somewhere you want to eat here
Make sure you get there early
I couldn't even tell what was queueing for what
There were just huge queues
For most restaurants
If there is somewhere you want to eat
Get there early enough
Or just accept that you're going to have to go in a queue
So don't be starving when you're ready to eat
It's a hell of a place!
I've not really felt like that since the first time we went to Tokyo
Which at that point
You're like "oh, it's crazy, it's amazing!"
"Look at all these people, look at all this weird crazy stuff!"
It's amazing
And we've not had that
Because as you get more used to the city
You obviously
You're not as surprised by it
It's all more familiar
But here it felt like an entirely new experience
And it was really good fun
I feel like I know all the areas in Tokyo now
But this is like Tokyo: The sequel
It's got the same sort of feel
But new areas to explore
Which is really good
And I am really enjoying it here
But it is nice to sit down now
At the end of the day
My legs felt like I was wading through concrete
It's really important to have comfy shoes
When you come to Japan
And if you have new shoes
Make sure you've worn them in
Because you don't want blisters
We've been walking about 10 miles a day
And I can really feel it right now!
It's worth exploring some of the side alleys as well
Not that we did a lot of it
But a few we did go down
They looked really picturesque
Some smaller bars and places
With all the lanterns and things
Looking very Japanese
If you want to see the rest of what we've been doing in Osaka
The videos are all on my channel
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There's a bit more of Osaka coming up
And some new videos from Tokyo