So, a wander through Den Den town, across several pedestrian crossings, some wrong turns and a couple of shopping districts later, my friend (the chugokujin) and I ended up at Dōtonbori. Dōtonbori is only a small area. It’s pretty much just a bridge, but it’s a busy ass bridge. Dōtonbori interconnecting several of the area’s busiest points (many of which have shops and malls) means it attracts quite a crowd and there’s always something to see.

Dōtonbori is a popular hang out for high school kids during the day. Dirty otaku fetish men will have a whale of a time watching girls in short skirts, knee high socks and cream cardigans flock past in their droves as they laugh, giggle and look at each others keitai’s. And Bleach fans will gasp at seeing teenage high school boys and be all like “*Gasp!!!* That looks like the uniform Ichigo wears!!”

And at night Dōtonbori becomes a hang out spot for the cool cats. Big haired Japanese dudes trying to hit on girls with varying ratios or success and failure, loudly dressed girls with their long flowing extensions and hair pieces, and random people and area guides wandering around shouting something through a megaphone: not so much helping as they are trying to make you go deaf. There is always some form of spectacle on the bridge of Dōtonbori – day or night.

Dōtonbori is famously known for it’s elaborately oversized displays and signs: none of which are adorned by halves. Every restaurant has a gigantic sign above it’s door and an eye catching statue by it’s doorway, every building has a large promotional billboard plastered across it, every arch into another area had a giant sized LCD display showing the news or running a commercial. And of course there is the world famous Glico man who overlooks the lake in all his smiley face and outstretched armed glory. The place is a complete overload on your visual senses. You do not know where to fix your eyes. At night the lake looks especially eye catching, as all of the neon signs along it light up in an electric show of colours.

Interestingly, each time I passed through Dōtonbori I saw a camera crew filming a number of things. Local folk, miniature robots, the lake, everything! I may have had my face shown on Japanese television unknown to me. I walked in front of the camera enough times and kept getting caught accidentally on purpose in shots.