Meat Sweats

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Last day in Osaka, slept in a little later, skipped breakfast, for reasons that will be clear soon.

Our intention was to do our last significant shopping in Japan, and then eat a all-you-can-eat/drink yakiniku place.

We went to Den Den town area, just south of us in Osaka, this is the mini Akihabara, full of everything Japanese pop culture, I was looking for more Gundams. We hit a few shops, and i found a few deals, buying some more stuff, and snaggin a box from one of the retailers to ship it home. Without going into a bunch of details that none of you readers care about, I paid 210USD for what would have cost me 310USD in the States.

I will take this time to try to convey the large department stores they have here. This store was very much like the Yodobashi described earlier, another one around here is Bic Camera. These stores have nearly everything, short of clothing. And to get that sweet sweet foreign money they will eat the tax if you spend more than $50 and present your passport, to further sweeten the deal, they will typically cut another 5% for visa or JCB card holders.

The crazy thing is, it seems these stores, despite being the same franchise, and some cases the same building, are competing against eachother. You go upstairs to the apliance section, and have to buy your stuff there, you cannot bring the hair dryer downstairs and pay for it when you pay for your cosmetics. I went to one store, and saw an item at 27% off (before the extra 5%), and then went to that same store, 25 feet down the street, these storefronts were seperated by a bank of ATMs, and saw that same thing for 35% off (again before the extra). Its very interesting how the free market works in Japan... but maintains consumer protections.

Laura also looked for cosmetics, but through research learned that many of the products here have parabens, which is bad for you, or are bad for you. I dont know, maybe they cause you to glow in the darkm or your skin slough off or something else unpleasant.

We went back to the hotel, grabbed some beers to prep for the meat marathon we were shortly going to undertake. The place we intended to go to had a misleading sign. They said its all you can eat/drink for 3500yen. Laura and I were sure we could prove that offering that to americans was a bad idea. Unfortunately it was 3500 for the food, and another 1700 for drinks. So we left there, went back to the hotel lobby to get on the wifi. We found a place that had all you can EAT AND DRINK in 100 minutes for 3700yen.

Over the course of the meal, we each had 4 beers, which would otherwise have been at least 600yen per. They place brings out the full platter of all the meats they offer, Beef Short Rib, Skirt Steak, Spare Rib, Ribeye, Pork neck, Ribs and Loin, Chicken neck, some cut o lamb, squid, sausage, ground beef/pork patties, beef heart, stomach and intestines.

We then ordered another 3 rounds of various kinds of meat, including extra heart, the beef heart was really tasty and fantastic texture, we neglecting ordering extra stomach/intestine too chewy, eating just beyond the point of being full.



We wandered around drunkenly digesting before going home, and hitting the rack before an early train to Tottori.