Dotonbori
The canal, the giant signs, the Glico running man, and the street where Osaka eats standing up.
Duration
1 hr 30 min – 3 hrs
Best time
After dark
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
Dotonbori is a canal dug in 1612 by a merchant who left it his name, lined first with theatres and then, when they closed, with restaurants. The street invented Osaka's kuidaore — the idea that you can eat yourself into ruin.
The signs are the attraction: the articulated Kani Doraku crab since 1960, the Glico running man since 1935, a giant octopus, a dragon. You eat standing up, takoyaki and okonomiyaki, and it is the one district in the city that genuinely lives after midnight.
Getting there
Metro Midosuji line, Namba station, exit 14. Ebisubashi bridge, in front of the Glico man, is five minutes away.
Rules on site
Ebisubashi bridge is a permanent bottleneck in the evening and pickpocket ground. Restaurants with touts on the main strip charge considerably more than the same dishes one street back.
Other places in Osaka
Osaka CastleHideyoshi's white and gold keep, in a park of several hectares.
Shinsekai and Tsutenkaku TowerA district still in the 1950s, fried skewers and tired neon.
Sumiyoshi-taishaOne of the oldest shrines in Japan, with its almost vertical humpback bridge.
Kuromon MarketSix hundred metres of fishmongers, sea urchins opened in front of you and Kobe beef on a skewer.