Osaka and okonomi and otaku, oh my!

The long weekend that wasn't has just passed by and I think I enjoyed it more than I would have if we had gone away. Quite content not to turn out for a big trip, we settled for a nice quiet weekend with a couple of excursions out to rediscover our local area. Of particular note was a "street festa" in Osaka that happened on Sunday in dotonbori. This is the home of "Den Den Town", which is Osaka's answer to Tokyo's electronics district Akihabara. It's chockers with every kind of game shop, hobby store and arcade you can imagine and not surprisingly, it's where all the "otaku" (worryingly intense game/anime geeks) hang out. The festa was a big cosplay ("costume play" - dress up) event. A lot of these people pretty much live their lives in costume - when they actually make the effort to get dressed up, it's a bit of a bloody sight to behold.

Before we got to the festa, we decided to have another crack at finding an okonomiyaki restaurant that Lisa fell in love with years ago. This saga had been going on for quite some time, remembering more than one afternoon-long attempt walking around trying to find it. This time though, we refused to give up and eventually a man abandoned his own restaurant to take us there. After a wait, we were shown in and sat at the hot plate while they brought everything over. Okonomiyaki is popular working class Osaka hot-plate fare that's a bit like an omelette/pancake with cabbage inside. You choose what fillings you want - usually seafood, pork or both, and that gets stuck in too. They usually beat all the ingredients up in little bowls, tip it on the hot plate at your table and flip it over with big metal spatulas. When it's done, it's brushed with barbeque-ish sauce and mayo, dusted with dried fish or seaweed flakes and you get stuck into it with your spatula straight off the griddle. What makes this restaurant special is the pictures they draw in mayonnaise on your okonomiyaki. I got Doraemon drawn on mine and Lisa had Hello Kitty, but through shamelessly spying on others I found that they had a bit of a knack for drawing Disney characters too. It ended up tasting as good as it looked and in the interests of being able to find it again, we've taken photos of nearby landmarks. I'm imagining going back next time to see nothing but an empty block of land and a swirling sandstorm.

After lunch we headed over to the festa proper. Without warning, we found ourselves thrust into a seething morass of people, some freezing cold and dressed in not enough PVC, others breathing heavily and clutching cameras with lenses that would make NASA jealous. The whole road was closed off and the crowd marched up and down, constantly stopping for impromptu photos with the cosplayers. Some of the costumes were staggering - handmade outfits, giant spiky hair, long pink wigs and awfully convincing magic wands/assault rifles/giant swords/whatever. I hate to think how much time, money and effort goes into these things - it must be serious business. Occasionally the crowd would yawn, forming a big open space around a really good one or a group of people dressed as characters from the same series. They would all pose, do little skits or dances in character and all the cameras would chatter away. A lot of the cosplayers were even taking photos of each other. I'm pretty sure I saw one of the Power Rangers taking a photo of a guy dressed as a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game.

At 4 o'clock, nervous traffic controllers shouted through megaphones that the road was being reopened, so Ultraman and sword-wielding demon alike obediently moved aside to the pavement. The street abruptly flooded with men in full samurai armour armed with tongs and rubbish bags, who began the cleanup. Japan does not do things by halves.

Thursday night I have another work party and given that spring holidays start shortly, I'm going to try and get some time off early next week. It's been like 3 weeks since our last big trip - I think we're overdue for another one. Maybe while we're away, I'll have some inspiration for my costume for the next festa.