Shopping in Shinsaibashi

Shinsaibashi-suji, located in the Minami/Namba area, is easily one of Osaka's best shopping locations. The covered shopping arcade runs for about 600 metres, and contains a mix of cheap chain stores, high end brand names, boutiques, restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, and traditional Japanese shops. It's become a tradition for us to go shopping in Shinsaibashi on Thursday afternoons, and even after all these months, we've still never managed to reach the very end.

One entrance to Shinsaibashi-suji

Shinsaibashi-suji looks out onto Dotonbori canal, with all its famous neon billboards

I like it because you can find all of your favourite shops on the one - albeit very long - street. Here are some of my Shinsaibashi faves.

Starting from Dotonbori canal, first we have H&M, which is made up of two buildings on each side of the street - the building on the right has about four floors of women's clothing, while the building on the left has two floors of women's clothing, and one of men's. H&M is cheap, trendy, and always jam-packed with bargain hunting girls in the weekends. The lines for fitting rooms have to be seen to be believed.

One side of H&M

Next up we have crepes-and-tapioca-drink vendors. There are two things I associate with Shinsaibashi-suji: the sound of classical music (for some reason they play it loudly through speakers), and the smell of crepes wafting down the arcade. Japan is obsessed with crepes, and the latest craze in beverages are tapioca drinks (milky flavoured teas with tapioca pearls in them), which are often sold with crepes. One vendor we always walk past is Crepe Ojisan, and the sweet smell of crepes, and the variety of delicious fillings - custard, caramel, banana, anyone? - are hard to resist.

Ryan gets his fix of crepes

A bit further down the street is a three-storey Hello Kitty store, which is impossible to miss, unless you are colour blind to pink. There are no words, really. Just PINK. I like to fantasize about what it would be like to have a Hello Kitty themed apartment, and apparently some people actually do. Last time I walked past there was a Hello Kitty air conditioner being advertised - like, the air conditioner was Hello Kitty's head, which would turn from side to side as it pumped out the air. Perfectly respectable.

So apparently it's called 'Sanrio Gallery', but I'm sticking with Hello Kitty store.

A clothes shop I really like is a chain store called 'Spins' (スピンズ), which is one of those shops that is so full of clothes and accessories that there's not much room for actual customers. You have to go up a little staircase to get to it, and they've even tried to cram clothes on the staircase railing. It's exciting. The style is very funky. Cool things I can remember include a handbag with piano keys on it, a miniskirt with bright red and green peppers, lots of fake glasses, high heel sneakers, tattoo print tights, a unicorn t-shirt, and earrings in the shape of various fruits.

Spins in Shinsaibashi. It's crazy.

There is also a 'KitKat' store. Now, I mentioned in my last post about how it is our mission to collect as many Japanese KitKats as possible, so when I first saw this shop I got really, really excited. Unfortunately, they only ended up selling ONE type of KitKats (green tea flavour), and the rest of the stock was other types of candy and snacks. If you have a sweet tooth it's still worth a visit, but I think KitKat lovers have a reason to feel cheated... false advertising much?

KitKat fanatics will be disappointed, but still worth a look.

Finally, at the end of our Shinsaibashi shopping expeditions, we usually treat ourselves to make-your-own frozen yoghurt at a shop called Partyland. This shop isn't quite in Shinsaibashi-suji - you have to cross the Dotonbori canal where Shinsaibashi-suji turns into another shopping arcade, Ebisubashi-suji, and Partyland is located at the end of that. At Partyland, you take a cup, and get to fill it with as much frozen yoghurt as you can eat (or afford - you pay per weight), with over 10 flavours to choose from. My faves are Okinawan lemon and coconut. Then you take your cup to a counter, where you can cover your frozen yoghurt in toppings and sprinkles - bits of cake, gummi bears, fruit, jelly, cornflakes, you name it. Then you weigh and pay. It's easy to get a bit carried away. It's awkward when it ends up being about $10 each time... but no regrets.

Partyland. A love affair.

So there we have Shinsaibashi, a place where I spend a lot of time, energy and yen.

Bra Shopping in Japan

Ok, this post is something I'd just like to get off my... erm... chest.

I'd never really thought about bra shopping in Japan before, but recently two of my favourite bras lost a battle with the washing dryer, and now I have to buy new ones. So, yesterday I trotted down to Shinsaibashi to check out the lingerie stores.

From what popular culture shows us, Japanese society has an obsession with boobs. Big ones. The idealised anime/manga-fied Japanese woman looks something like this:

(Image source)

I was watching an episode of Sailor Moon the other night, and was surprised to see that even my favourite heroine was not above sporting some rather impressive cleavage:

The result of all this hyper-sexualisation is reflected in the lingerie stores. I couldn't find a single bra that didn't have excessive padding, push-upness, squeeze-together-ness, gel-inserts, intimidating wiring, or claim to have some sort of revolutionary gravity-defying technology. Seriously, there was probably more support contained within those stores than there is for the Japanese government.

And then there were the adornments. We know that Japanese women like to decorate things - cell phones, notebooks, pets - and naturally this extends to innerwear. It's like a secret party is going on beneath your shirt. Blinged, bejewelled, studded and sparkly bras were a regular feature, as was lace, frills, mesh, ribbon, bows, and little dangly charms. I saw one bra that was like a turban for your boobs, it had so much extra fabric. You are hard pressed to find a simple white, nude or black bra. Instead, typical colours include lime green, yellow, magenta, and metallic gold. Or you can forget about colour schemes and just go for character themes. Hello Kitty, Snoopy and Superman are apparently the most popular characters to be brandished across your chest.

What I find amusing is the series of contradictions in the Japanese bra shopping experience. Like, you might have a bra designed to anchor your breasts up to your chin, but it will have a Sesame Street character printed on it. You might walk into a bra shop that is a pastel pink, frilly, girly fairyland, but Kanye West will be blaring on the speakers. Signs within the shops can't seem to decide if they want to promote conservatism or promiscuity. So they mix both. 'Sexy Innocent Girl', 'Pure Bedtime Lady', and 'Milk Mama Casual Butterfly' were my favourite combinations.

Unfortunately, not a single bra was bought that day. I'll let you know when I cave and decide to buy the twin Hello Kitty heads...