Ame-Mura and Den-Den-Town

Hello all!


I have a fairly homework free night, so I suppose it's time to update!  Today's post is about 2 of Osaka's districts: Ame-Mura and Den-Den-Town.  Ame-Mura is kind of a Crazy Town.  It's where lots of people go and dress up in a very Visual Kei style:

And Den-Den-Town is Electonics City.  If you want any sort of gadget that's electronic, you go there.  It's also full of Maid Cafes (more on that later), porn, anime, and lots of Otaku (hardcore anime and manga fans):

So I started my Saturday off with 2 of my friends, Calvin, Robert and Tom, and we're meeting another friend, Jacqui, at Yodoyabashi station.  It was our first time taking the train without help from a Japanese friend, so I was a little bit nervous.  The system is pretty easy though: you see where you want to go and what the price is (320 yen in our case), buy it, and wait for the train at the appropriate platform.  We screwed up on that last part though, we were waiting for the red train on platform 5, and Robert casually noticed that nobody else was standing on our platform.  Then we see the red train with "Destinatin: Yodoyabashi" written on it arrive at platform 3, on the other side of the tracks.  We tried to race and catch it but we were too slow. It was all right though, another one came in 6 minutes.  We met Jacqui and the mother and 2 daughters of her host family at Yodoyabashi, and her host mother helped us get on the subway and get off at the right stop, Shinsaibashi.  

When we came out of the subway, we were surrounded by ritzy stores like Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, etc., and I thought we were in the wrong place.  But after a little wandering and asking the locals for directions, we made it to Ame-Mura.  I apologize, I don't have many pictures of the place, because I was just standing there gawking at most things.  A lot of guys were dressed like the picture I posted earlier:

And there were lots of stores supplying this style for them.  All of the stores for girls were full of the typical floral and lacy clothes that most Japanese girls seem to wear.  Calvin, Robert and Tom left to find our friend Luke at the subway, so Jacqui and I wandered around.  She was trying to find this store that she had researched that sold boxed hair dye, and it was very difficult to find somebody who knew about it; turns out it was in a completely different part of town (not part of the Ame-Mura district).  Before we went to the store, we discovered a pet store (with the cutest papillon puppy! <3) some tattoo shops, and a very classy club, where some Japanese boys on the top balcony waved at me and tried to get me to join.  Sorry boys, I'm on a budget!  Then we met up with the boys and began our trek to the hair dye store, but just before we left Ame-Mura district, we ran into some Yakuza.

Now for those of you who don't know what that is, Yakuza are super-badass Japanese mafia, a traditional Japanese crime syndicate.  They're always dressed up in very well-tailored suits, have LOTS of tattoos, and are occasionally missing fingers (if a >_<).  

Ouch.

Now, this whole... ordeal lasted less than 3 seconds, but it still feels so fresh in my mind.  The only reason I noticed them was because they were dressed in suits, and not in the crazy Visual Kei that everybody else was wearing.  I caught them out of the corner of my eye and turned to look at them over my right shoulder.  There was three of them, two in black suits and one in a grey suit.  And out of their collars and the ends of their sleeves, you could see the tattoos just crawling out of them across their skin.  I wish I had had time to see if they had all their fingers.  The one in the grey suit noticed me looking and he gave me a very genuine smile, but the other two shot me the dirtiest looks I've ever recieved, so I decided avoiding them was the best course of action.  IT WAS A TOTALLY BAD ASS MOMENT!

After my heart stopped racing, I found that we had made our way to the hair dye store, Loft, which was really just an everything store.  They had lots of zippo lighters, stickers, expensive watches and sunglasses, hair dye, make up, hair accessories, hair tools, foot massagers, shampoo and soap and loads of other things.  That was only 2 floors too, I'm pretty sure there was five altogether.  Jacqui found her dye, the boys bought some zippos, and we made our way to a Chinese restaurant to eat.  It was pretty good, but not like American-Chinese food, I think this stuff was more legit.  

You be the judge

So we met up with another friend, Sebastien, and the boys decided they wanted to go to Den-Den-Town to see a Maid Cafe.  Now a Maid Cafe is, usually, a cafe where all the waitresses are dressed as maids (to go with the whole Otaku thing).  But sometimes, there are some sexually explicit ones.  Here is a typical Maid Cafe:

So Jacqui and I reluctantly agree to join them in Den-Den-Town.  We hopped back on the subway and went to the Nipponbashi stop.  There we got out and saw our first love hotels.  Love hotels are places people can go to have sex.  They get charged by the hour.  The reason is that, Japanese houses are so close together and  its very easy to hear thins between houses, so couples can't be intimate within their houses.  As a result, they go to these love hotels.  Here's a nice Christmas themed love hotel we found:

Sexy Santa!

We made our way through a market, and found ourselves in Den-Den-Town.  Everything was lit up in neon signs and the streets were full of nerds er, I mean Otaku.  Totally different from the Japanese rocker style of Ame-Mura.  So of course, our first stop was a 6 story Japanese porn shop.  It was pretty fun.  Each floor got progressively worse and weirder than the last.  And it was very funny to come around a corner and see some guys who were actually going to buy something be super surprised to see girls in the store. There was porn for weird fetishes too (bondage, pooping and peeing on each other, old people...). But once you've seen a million boobies, you've seen them all.  So we left, don't worry though, I'll be back to get my Halloween costume (Just kidding mom and dad!).

And then we went into a 5 story arcade.  It was really cool.  There were floors with typical arcade games, and then there were online games where you battled other people there.  There was a Gundam gaming pod (Gundam is a manga and anime series where people fight in these giant robot suits).  Here is the pod:

And people are inside of it controlling a robot, as the characters would in the Gundam series.  There were probably 14 pods there and it was split up into a red team and a blue team.  People not in the pods could watch how the battle was going on a television screen.  Luke tried his hand at it, but he got his ass handed to him by the Japanese gamers.


Now it was time to find a Maid Cafe.  There were maids standing on all the corners, trying to get customers to come to their cafe (actually describing it like that made me think of another profession...?).  So we went up to a maid dressed in pink with devils horns and a devils tail (foreshadowing!)  and asked her where her cafe was.  She showed us the way, and there was herself and a few others standing outside.  We were looking for a cheap one (apparently they're pretty pricey), so we asked to see their menu.  They didn't really understand, so they told us there was a 500 yen cover charge and a beer cost another 500 yen.  So we asked them for their menu again, and they pointed to a sign at the front of their building that showed what they offered.  It was offering lots of massages.  We knew then it was time to leave.  We said our thanks to the devil and left.  The boys stopped to eat and then we all decided to return home, although me and Jacqui were pretty ticked since the reason we came was for a Maid Cafe and the boys gave up pretty easily.


The rest of the week was fairly uneventful.  I joined the Kansai Gaidai Running Club, and Monday and today (Tuesday), I successfully ran 1.6 km (a mile) each day.  I can usually only do this on a treadmill, so being able to do this outside is very good for me.  I'm quite impressed with myself.  Way to go body!


Today I was meeting a Japanese friend, Naomi, for lunch, and while I was waiting for her, two Japanese girls came up to me and said "Do you have time?" So I gave them the time, and they asked again "Do you have time?" and it took me a bit but I realized they were asking if I had time to hang out.  So Rina and Azu, the two girls, joined Naomi and me.  They were very nice girls, and we're planning to have lunch again next week (or maybe this Friday? I'm not sure, I'll have to figure it out).  I also went to pick up some milk and bread after my run tonight, and while I was waiting at the stop light (on Destiny, my Bike Conquistador), two Japanese boys drove by on a moped and said "So Pretty!"  It made my night.  Thank you boys! I accept compliments at all hours of the day! Anytime, anywhere!


Anyways I'm off to bed now,  I'm supposed to be going to a Danjiri festival with my friend Hi-chan this weekend, so hopefully I will be able to tell you about that!


Peace and love!