survival

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::: osaka's dotombori district (between the famous commercial artery that flows between namba and shinseibashi) operates, according to our lonely planet, on a certain kind of darwinism: "survival of the flashiest"...

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...scenes from the city's flashiest district...beginning with a couple of icons (the crab and the glico man) which serve as good meeting points...

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...don't light that match: with the amount of hair products we saw on men and women, dotombori has a high combustibility quotient...

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...we don't know these people...but they seemed nice...so i took their group picture...why not?...

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... yum-yum...osaka is famous of tako-yaki (steaming-hot, octopus-filled donut-holes covered with sweet sauce, mayo, and bonita flakes)...

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... this place made famous the tako-yaki shrimp cracker sandwich...

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...the corridor between namba and shinseibashi is probably the most dense "fun-stuff-per-sq.foot" area on earth...

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...guess this....

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...yep, that marble-in-a-bottle thingamajigee (finally found one june!)...amazing how japanese food and drink products continue to climb the scale of creativity...consumer review: we were disappointed with the overall marble concept...the marble didn't do anything but just sit there after the fun part of popping it into the bottle...seems like a waste of marbles...

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...udon bar, namba station...is the curtain really necessary?...

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...hooray...free live music...i've always been a fan of street music...one thing i've noticed in japan: the gear that these bands use are always top-notch...so even if they don't sound great, they do sound great...

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...goodnight papa: a sweet way to end the day...

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...we survived, but we're beat...time to shelve our feet for the night...thanks cathy for sharing the fun and friendship tonight (and always fighting over the bill)...we love ya!

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