Shinsaibashi Shopping Street

Shinsaibashi Shopping Street, known in Japanese as Shinsaibashi-Suji Shoutengai, is an arcade type shopping street. Having been prospering since mid 18th, that shopping street has been an iconic entity of Minami, Osaka for a long time. 
When it comes to Minami, one of the two major downtowns of Osaka, most people would imagine the scene of arcade-type shopping streets with a crowd of people. Sinsaibashi Shopping Street is lying on the major part of them, but not all of them.

However, people living in Osaka usually recognize the shopping streets around Minami as a continuous long shopping street. So it would be better to wright about whole of the shopping street in this article. In fact, running from north to south, the sopping street shows various different faces; people walking around and shops standing there vary greatly depending on the place. To put it bluntly, north area is a daytime street and south area is a night-time street, and there are some dangerous, or rather, weird and deserted streets in the south area.

Ebisubashi Bridge might be able to be said as a dividing point between the north and south. As you go across the bridge to the north and into deeper area, the air emitted from people and shops changes slightly in almost insensible degrees. But some changes certainly exist.

Roughly half of people on the shopping street walk from north to south. In particular, classy people coming from suburb areas would prefer the north area, and therefore, they are much more likely to walk from north side. And then, they face the Ebisubashi Bridge. On the bridge, there are many people who sit down on the side of it or walk around there at jobs such as touting, street interview, and scouting for various talent ranging from actor to night club hostess; these people are generally young and have somewhat naughty appearance. It might keep away mild people from south area.

By the way, there are many kinds of people who have taken root in or are routinely walking around in the shopping street. These kinds of people sometimes can give obscure impression to foreign travelers like "what are they doing?" So I would like to reveal it for you.

1) Catch 

'Catch' is the collective term for the people who work for attracting passersby to their pub, night club, or various kinds of other night spots; but the pronounce of the word 'catch' is completely different from English's it. Manny people feel annoyance at their approaching and it required them to be a tough guy or have naughty appearance in case of various possible troubles. They however rarely approach foreign travelers because their business is mostly aimed at Japanese.

2) Nagashi

'Nagashi' means street musician in Japanese and the original meaning of the word 'Nagashi' is 'flow'; it means that they are performing their musics at various places, wandering like a river flow. Most of them appear on weekends or at night and are doing it with the aim of becoming a professional musician. 

3) Scout

They are exclusively aiming young girls in attempt to hire them as fashion models, TV personalities, or waitresses of night clubs. I, of course, am writing that in an elegant manner and as you might be able to imagine, the jobs which Scouts are offering them must include many dubious ones. They are usually wearing dark suits and wandering in the street, searching for their targets. You might have the chance to come across them approaching a girl in front of you and it will become an annoying sight for you.

4) Chinese travelers 

It is almost impossible to distinguish Chinese from Japanese by their appearance especially for western people. But There is one almost indisputable clue for proving that "this people are Chinese"; they are forming a company of 15~20 persons and taking pictures. Japanese, especially local people living in Osaka, generally don't walk around Namba with such many people. The Chinese travelers often seen on the Ebisubashi Bridge probably because the bridge is introduced in their guidebook, and of course, there are some travelers from other countries.

Besides above kinds of people, there are various people especially on week-end days. Putting that aside, I would like to introduce some trivial but useful informations that would help foreign travelers walking on the shopping street. And you can teach it your travel companions.

1) Vending Machine

As you might know, there is a lot of beverage vending machines in Japan. Besides being various products, their prices differ from machine to machine. Even same product can be sold with different prices in nearby area. As for the quality of the products, however, cheaper machines do not always offer inferior ones.  

Rather, they unexpectedly offer sufficiently chilled drinks almost without exception from my experience. This is one of the seven wonders of Japan; while regular price vending machines rarely serve scarcely chilled drinks, cheaper ones always serve well chilled drinks without fail.

2）Internet Cafe

Now that almost all foreign travelers have smartphones, the needs of internet cafe appear to have practically been lost. But Japanese internet cafes offer not only access to the internet but also places to sleep at lower fees than cheap hotels.

Besides, they offer free drinks and are equipped with one or two shower rooms which can be used for a few hundred yens. Of course, since the rooms are made in accordance with the size of Japanese people, people more than 6 feet tall will feel the rooms a little bit cramped. 

While there are various cafes, I particularly recommend 'Popeye' and 'Airs Cafe' because of their cleanliness and quality of clerks. Unlike major hotels, however, there are very few staff who can speak English well. For your information, some identification such as passport is required for enter these cafes.

In many cases, accommodation package becomes available from around 8 p.m., and it costs within 2000 yen for 12 hours or so. Of course, you can stay beyond the time by paying extension charge. In my experience, there are some vacant room almost without exception.

Above all, the refill-free drinks are very helpful for travel expenses. There are Coca-Cola, Sprite, lemon tea, iced coffee, Japanese tea, etc. Also an Ice maker is set next to the drink dispenser. As for foods and hot drinks, most cafes serve them too, but these items are relatively expensive. So I recommend you to buy some foods before checking in. 

3) Rest Room 

When you want to go to the restroom while walking on the street, there are some facilities and shops that are equipped with restrooms which can be used free of charge, in other words, without buying any items there: large bookstore, amusement arcade, department store, and shopping mall. 

I particularly recommend amusement arcade -game center, in Japanese- for using as a restroom. Different from Casinos, there are not gangsters, but rather are computer game geeks, instead. Game center or "ge-sen" is a peaceful place.

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~ Summary ~

 Shinsaibashi Shopping Street and some extensional shopping streets are a cave of excitement wonder. Although its real appeals would not be understood completely in short time stay, you should be able to feel the heat of people when walking around there.