Osaka Travel Quotes

I have traveled around the world. I’ve walked the Great Wall of China, eaten dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and ridden the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. That’s not all. I’ve led an army into battle on dragonback, seduced a vicious mafia boss, and journeyed back in time to fall in love with everyone from Vikings to the Knights of the Round Table. I’ve lived a thousand lives. Too bad the only real one fucking sucks.

Down every aisle a single thought follows me like a shadow: Brand Italy is strong. When it comes to cultural currency, there is no brand more valuable than this one. From lipstick-red sports cars to svelte runway figures to enigmatic opera singers, Italian culture means something to everyone in the world. But nowhere does the name Italy mean more than in and around the kitchen. Peruse a pantry in London, Osaka, or Kalamazoo, and you're likely to find it spilling over with the fruits of this country: dried pasta, San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, jars of pesto, Nutella. Tucked into the northwest corner of Italy, sharing a border with France and Switzerland, Piedmont may be as far from the country's political and geographical center as possible, but it is ground zero for Brand Italy. This is the land of Slow Food. Of white truffles. Barolo. Vermouth. Campari. Breadsticks. Nutella. Fittingly, it's also the home of Eataly, the supermarket juggernaut delivering a taste of the entire country to domestic and international shoppers alike. This is the Eataly mother ship, the first and most symbolically important store for a company with plans for covering the globe in peppery Umbrian oil, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano Vacche Rosse. We start with the essentials: bottle opener, mini wooden cutting board, hard-plastic wineglasses. From there, we move on to more exciting terrain: a wild-boar sausage from Tuscany. A semiaged goat's-milk cheese from Molise. A tray of lacy, pistachio-pocked mortadella. Some soft, spicy spreadable 'nduja from Calabria. A jar of gianduja, the hazelnut-chocolate spread that inspired Nutella- just in case we have any sudden blood sugar crashes on the trail.

As Japan recovered from the post-war depression, okonomiyaki became the cornerstone of Hiroshima's nascent restaurant culture. And with new variables- noodles, protein, fishy powders- added to the equation, it became an increasingly fungible concept. Half a century later it still defies easy description. Okonomi means "whatever you like," yaki means "grill," but smashed together they do little to paint a clear picture. Invariably, writers, cooks, and oko officials revert to analogies: some call it a cabbage crepe; others a savory pancake or an omelet. Guidebooks, unhelpfully, refer to it as Japanese pizza, though okonomiyaki looks and tastes nothing like pizza. Otafuku, for its part, does little to clarify the situation, comparing okonomiyaki in turn to Turkish pide, Indian chapati, and Mexican tacos. There are two overarching categories of okonomiyaki Hiroshima style, with a layer of noodles and a heavy cabbage presence, and Osaka or Kansai style, made with a base of eggs, flour, dashi, and grated nagaimo, sticky mountain yam. More than the ingredients themselves, the difference lies in the structure: whereas okonomiyaki in Hiroshima is carefully layered, a savory circle with five or six distinct layers, the ingredients in Osaka-style okonomiyaki are mixed together before cooking. The latter is so simple to cook that many restaurants let you do it yourself on table side teppans. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, on the other hand, is complicated enough that even the cooks who dedicate their lives to its construction still don't get it right most of the time. (Some people consider monjayaki, a runny mass of meat and vegetables popularized in Tokyo's Tsukishima district, to be part of the okonomiyaki family, but if so, it's no more than a distant cousin.) Otafuku entered the picture in 1938 as a rice vinegar manufacturer. Their original factory near Yokogawa Station burned down in the nuclear attack, but in 1946 they started making vinegar again. In 1950 Otafuku began production of Worcestershire sauce, but local cooks complained that it was too spicy and too thin, that it didn't cling to okonomiyaki, which was becoming the nutritional staple of Hiroshima life. So Otafuku used fruit- originally orange and peach, later Middle Eastern dates- to thicken and sweeten the sauce, and added the now-iconic Otafuku label with the six virtues that the chubby-cheeked lady of Otafuku, a traditional character from Japanese folklore, is supposed to represent, including a little nose for modesty, big ears for good listening, and a large forehead for wisdom.

Capa left for Japan on 11 April and was delighted with the reception he received. He travelled to Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Kobe and Amagasaki, thoroughly enjoying being in a country he described to a friend as a ‘photographer’s paradise’ and unaware that mundane events would soon interrupt his idyll.

Carlton Church review – Why Tokyo is populated? How Tokyo became the largest city? Apparently Tokyo Japan has been one of the largest global cities for hundreds of years. One of the primary reasons for its growth is the fact that it has been a political hotspot since they Edo period. Many of the feudal lords of Japan needed to be in Edo for a significant part of the year and this has led to a situation where increasing numbers of the population was attracted to the city. There were many people with some power base throughout Japan but it became increasingly clear that those who have the real power were the ones who were residing in Edo. Eventually Tokyo Japan emerged as both the cultural and the political center for the entire Japan and this only contributed to its rapid growth which made it increasingly popular for all people living in Japan. After World War II substantial rebuilding of the city was necessary and it was especially after the war that extraordinary growth was seen and because major industries came especially to Tokyo and Osaka, these were the cities where the most growth took place. The fact remains that there are fewer opportunities for people who are living far from the cities of Japan and this is why any increasing number of people come to the city. There are many reasons why Japan is acknowledged as the greatest city The Japanese railways is widely acknowledged to be the most sophisticated railway system in the world. There is more than 100 surface routes which is operated by Japan’s railways as well as 13 subway lines and over the years Japanese railway engineers has accomplished some amazing feats which is unequalled in any other part of the world. Most places in the city of Tokyo Japan can be reached by train and a relatively short walk. Very few global cities can make this same boast. Crossing the street especially outside Shibuya station which is one of the busiest crossings on the planet with literally thousands of people crossing at the same time. However, this street crossing symbolizes one of the trademarks of Tokyo Japan and its major tourism attractions. It lies not so much in old buildings but rather in the masses of people who come together for some type of cultural celebration. There is also the religious centers in Japan such as Carlton Church and others. Tokyo Japan has also been chosen as the city that will host the Olympics in 2020 and for many reasons this is considered to be the best possible venue. A technological Metropolitan No other country exports more critical technologies then Japan and therefore it should come as no surprise that the neighborhood electronics store look more like theme parks than electronic stores. At quickly becomes clear when one looks at such a spectacle that the Japanese people are completely infatuated with technology and they make no effort to hide that infatuation. People planning to visit Japan should heed the warnings from travel organizations and also the many complaints which is lodged by travelers who have become victims of fraud. It is important to do extensive research regarding the available options and to read every possible review which is available regarding travel agencies. A safe option will always be to visit the website of Carlton Church and to make use of their services when travelling to and from Japan.

have traveled around the world. I’ve walked the Great Wall of China, eaten dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and ridden the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. That’s not all. I’ve led an army into battle on dragonback, seduced a vicious mafia boss, and journeyed back in time to fall in love with everyone from Vikings to the Knights of the Round Table. I’ve lived a thousand lives. Too bad the only real one fucking sucks.

I have traveled around the world. I've walked the Great Wall of China, eaten dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and ridden the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. That's not all. I've led an army into battle on dragonback, seduced a vicious mafia boss, and journeyed back in time to fall in love with everyone from Vikings to the Knights of the Round Table. I've lived a thousand lives. Too bad the only real one fucking sucks.

I have traveled around the world. I’ve walked the Great Wall of China, eaten dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and ridden the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. That’s not all. I’ve led an army into battle on dragonback, seduced a vicious mafia boss, and journeyed back in time to fall in love with everyone from Vikings to the Knights of the Round Table. I’ve lived a thousand lives. Too bad the only real one fucking sucks. I sigh and close the book I’ve been reading. It’s a good one, about a ghost hunter who accidentally falls in love with the spirit she’s supposed to track down. Some people call these guilty pleasure reads, but why should I feel guilt for wanting to escape to somewhere else, even for a little while?

Even in 1963, only a year before opening, the director-general of the Construction Department of JNR, stated to new JNR employees: The Tokaido Shinkansen is the height of madness. As the gauge of the Tokaido Shinkansen is different from existing lines, track sharing is not possible. Even if the journey time between Tokyo and Osaka is shortened, passengers have to change trains at Osaka in order to travel further west. A railway system which lacks smooth connections and networks with other lines is meaningless and destined to fail.

With the first glass of wine, the stilted silence prevails. A plate of warm buffalo mozzarella appears, speckled with pink peppercorns, and something about that combination of tang and spice, cream and crunch, tells you that tonight will be different from the others you've spent in Japan. With the second glass of wine, your neighbors look over and offer a kanpai. Another plate arrives, this one a few pieces of seared octopus, the purple tentacles curled like crawling vines around a warm mound of barely mashed potatoes.

Later, we deepen our investigation into the drinking-while-standing phenomenon at Mashika, an Italian izakaya in a hip pocket of Nishi-ku. The Italian-Japanese coalition is hardly new territory in this pasta-loving country, but Mishika is a different kind of mash-up. To start with, the space isn't really a restaurant at all. During the day, grandma sells cigarettes out of the small space. When the sun goes down, grandson fires up the burners as a crowd of thirtysomething Osakans drink Spritz and fill up on charcuterie, sashimi, and funky hybrids like spaghetti sauced with grated daikon and crowned with a wedge of ocean-sweet saury tataki. The menu follows no particular rules at all. Nobody seems to notice.

The guidebooks aren't wrong; Osaka is not a textbook beautiful city. Not a seamless stretch of civilization, but a patchwork of skyscrapers and smokestacks, Gucci and ghettos, that better approximates life as most of us know it. With all this in mind, it's not surprising that Osaka is a center of casual food culture. Its two most famous foods, okonomiyaki (a thick, savory pancake stuffed with all manners of flora and fauna) and takoyaki (a golf-ball-sized fritter with a single chewy nugget of octopus deposited at its molten core), are the kind of carb, fatty, belly-padding drinking food that can sustain a city with Osaka's voracious appetite for mischief.

Half the food that he sends out is raw: ruby cubes of tuna dressed with a heaping mound of fresh wasabi; sea grapes the size of ball bearings that pop like caviar against the roof of your mouth; glistening beads of salmon roe meant to be stuffed into crispy sheets of nori. The other half gets the blowtorch treatment. Tuna is transformed into a sort of tataki stir-fry, toasted, glazed with ponzu, and tossed with a thicket of spring onions. Fish heads are blitzed under the flame until the cheeks singe and the skin screams and the eyes melt into a glorious stew meant to be extracted with chopsticks. Even sea urchin, those soft orange tongues of ocean umami, with a sweetness so subtle that cooking it is considered heretical in most culinary circles, gets blasted like a crème brûlée by Toyo and his ring of fire.

I can tell right away by looking at you what you want to eat," he says. "I can tell how many brothers and sisters you have." After divining my favorite color (blue) and my astrological sign (Aquarius), Nakamura pulls out an ivory stalk of takenoko, fresh young bamboo ubiquitous in Japan during the spring. "This came in this morning from Kagumi. It's so sweet that you can eat it raw." He peels off the outer layer, cuts a thin slice, and passes it across the counter. First, he scores an inch-thick bamboo steak with a ferocious santoku blade. Then he sears it in a dry sauté pan until the flesh softens and the natural sugars form a dark crust on the surface. While the bamboo cooks, he places two sacks of shirako, cod milt, under the broiler. ("Milt," by the way, is a euphemism for sperm. Cod sperm is everywhere in Japan in the winter and early spring, and despite the challenges its name might create for some, it's one of the most delicious things you can eat.) Nakamura brings it all together on a Meiji-era ceramic plate: caramelized bamboo brushed with soy, broiled cod milt topped with miso made from foraged mountain vegetables, and, for good measure, two lightly boiled fava beans. An edible postcard of spring. I take a bite, drop my chopsticks, and look up to find Nakamura staring right at me. "See, I told you I know what you want to eat." The rest of the dinner unfolds in a similar fashion: a little counter banter, a little product display, then back to transform my tastes and his ingredients into a cohesive unit. The hits keep coming: a staggering plate of sashimi filled with charbroiled tuna, surgically scored squid, thick circles of scallop, and tiny white shrimp blanketed in sea urchin: a lesson in the power of perfect product. A sparkling crab dashi topped with yuzu flowers: a meditation on the power of restraint. Warm mochi infused with cherry blossoms and topped with a crispy plank of broiled eel: a seasonal invention so delicious it defies explanation.

As I'm paying the bill, an older gentleman with an electric-blue tie sparks up a conversation with the chef. "What's good right now? You have anything you're really excited about?" Nakamura reaches down into one of his coolers and pulls out a massive wedge of beef so intensely frosted with fat that only the sparest trace of protein is visible. "A-five Omi beef." A hush falls over the restaurant; Omi beef, ludicrously fatty and fabulously expensive, may be Japan's finest Wagyu. The man bites, and Nakamura gets to work on his dish. He sears the beef, simmers wedges of golden carrots, whisks a fragrant sauce made with butter and vanilla. It's the first time the beef has made an appearance all night, but by the time Nakamura flips the steak, three more orders come in. Suddenly, the entire restaurant is happily working its way through these heartbreaking steaks, and I'm left staring at my bill. "Are you sure you want to leave?" Nakamura asks, and before I can say anything, he cuts another steak.

We need a landing pad for all this rice wine, so we order the only food they serve in this joint: chunky miso from Wakayama, purple piles of pickled plums, and a strangely delicious cream cheese spiked with sake that pairs perfectly with nearly everything we pour. Nihonshu sneaks up on you. It goes down gently, floral and cold, coating your throat in the most positively medicinal of ways. There is no recoil, no heartburn, no palpable reminder that what you're drinking is an intoxicant- just gentle sweetness and the earthy whisper of fermentation.

Out comes everything: piles of blistered shishito peppers, golden fried sandwiches of taro root stuffed with minced pork, bowls of dashi-braised daikon, a tower of yakitori, including my favorite, tsukune, a charcoal-kissed chicken meatball rich with fat and cartilage, meant to be dipped in raw egg yolk. My chopsticks cannot move fast enough.