Japan 2.0: Lost Underground in Osaka

By Nick Hodge | July 6, 2007

Goal today was to work out exactly where we are, and what is around. And more importantly, how we are getting around.

Picture: Can Has 8-bit Text! Shinkansen timetable

First stop: JR station to purchase tickets. Eventually lining up in the correct queue, we spent about AU$1200 on carious Shinkansen (bullet/fast train) both to Hiroshima for Sunday, and going into Tokyo for Tuesday next week. Kyoto is a short 30 minute train ride north-ish tomorrow.

Yodobashi Camera. My nemesis on previous trips; this trip is no different. Purchased a new Canon IXY 1000 10 megapixel camera and handed the old Canon down. This will be my 4th IXY camera, and they are real workhorses.

Now Yodobashi camera. Think of a department store, but with electronics galore. Every brand, software, hardware, whitegoods, obscure accessories: the list goes on. In a vertical store 7 stories high. Now non-geeks, before your brain explodsed, there is are two floors of fashion and another 2 floors of food.

Picture: many, many isles of geek gadgetry. There are 6 floors above this full of geek stuff.

Osaka is missing the vending machines of Tokyo. In Tokyo, they exist everywhere. In Osaka, the only vending machines are for cigarettes.

TV is Japan is as weird as portrayed on Australia TV. Considering the range, and HD quality of TV's as demonstrated in Yodobashi, I wonder what Japanese people watch.

Not happy just to watch TV at home, there are now phones that have TV and all the other phone stuff. The TV isn't beamed over the network: there is a little antenna:

Liam witnessed some animated underpants at 2pm, and the morning show has its own Karl. Happy whales in catalogs, and less English signs than you find in Tokyo.

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