Osaka is Japan’s second largest city, with 17 million people living in the greater metropolitan Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe area. The city is a sprawling concrete jungle, with tall buildings, deep subways, and lots of bustling people. In general, Osaka seems to be the New York of Japan, while Tokyo is more like Los Angeles, with a much shorter history and a culture that can feel more bland and standardized at times. Osaka is a funny place, and it’s almost a given that successful comedians will speak Osaka-ben (Osaka dialect), which is much more entertaining to listen to than standard Japanese, in a somewhat Eddie Murphy/Jerry Seinfeld kind of way. Like Tokyo, Osaka is so big it has to be governed like a prefecture, with 24 districts (ku) that function like individual cities. Some areas foreigners might like to visit include the electronics region named Den Den Town and a nightlife/drinking district called Doutonburi, where you can see Japan’s most famous neon sign, the Glico Man. Osaka has always been a commercial city where business comes first, and a popular greeting among people above a certain age is moukarimakka? (moh-kah-ree-MAH-KAH?), literally meaning, “Are you making a lot of profit lately?” (The standard reply is bochi bochi den-NAH, “Yes, a little.”) An interesting tidbit about the city: when using escalators, Tokyo-ites who want to ride up keep to the left, leaving the right side for people in a hurry to walk up, but in Osaka this is reversed. Thus, whenever Tokyo-ites visit Osaka they stand on the wrong side, causing confusion and exposing themselves to embarrassment. Something to keep in mind on your next visit to Osaka.
