🇯🇵Osaka Travel Photography Part III: Street Scenes: Arcades, Shopping & Food 🇯🇵

Embark on an adventure beyond the tourist stops in Osaka with PhotowalksTV! Join us as we explore the vibrant Koreatown, stroll through the bustling Shinsekai shopping arcade, discover a hidden Robatayaki restaurant down a quiet alley, and savor the best Turkish Kabobs in the heart of Osaka.

🌟 Chapters
00:00 Osaka
01:08 Koreatown
04:24 Paul’s Photo
04:40 Shinsekai
07:45 “The Kitchen of Japan”
09:14 Robatayaki
11:52 Neon lights
14:31 Don Quijote
15:57 Turkish Kabobs

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🙌 Special Thanks:
A heartfelt thank you to @osakadotcom7316, Matt, Wes, and Alan for their invaluable assistance in uncovering Osaka’s hidden treasures.

🛍️ Capture Your Adventure:
This episode was filmed on iPhone 14 and 15 Pro cameras and the Insta360 X3.

🤔 Engage with us!
What hidden spots have you discovered in Osaka? Share your favorite gems in the comments below!

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– Photo Walks TV is brought to you by Paul’s Photo and the Creative Photo Academy. For this edition of Photo Walks tv, we return to photographically explore even more of Osaka and the SAI region in Japan. This is our favorite area, even more photogenic than Tokyo. Way more colorful. And with

So many great photo ops now in part one, we showed you the greatest hits, which includes the historic Osaka castle and bustling Dobo. But in this episode, we are gonna meet up again with our pal matt from osaka.com and make a new pal as well when West from osaka.com joins us.

We’ll visit the lively Koreatown section and some other great shopping arcades. Have a unique dinner in this little Hideaway restaurant in an alley. And speaking to food. You say Japan, I’m guessing you’re thinking noodles and sushi, but what if I told you that you could come get some of the best pizza anywhere

And kebabs to die for? Stay tuned for that. But let’s start off in Koreatown. Matt, here we are back in Osaka, another wonderful adventure. Today we’re in Koreatown, – Right? We’re in Koreatown. We’re actually in the older part of Koreatown by Suru Hashi Station as featured in the bestselling novel Pachinko,

Which was made into a popular TV series by Apple tv. – So you get the Osaka castle out of the way. Yeah. You get Deten Berry out of the way. Yeah. And then you come to Koreatown. – This is like a whole nother world.

– Okay. I love you. So this is where it all starts. – Yeah. – All righty. – We just wave to the people. We’re in Su Hashi, which is the older part of Koreatown. We’re actually going to walk through a maze of the shopping arcade to get to I Koreatown,

Which is about 10 minutes away. But we don’t have to walk in the street because mostly we’re gonna be traveling under the covered arcade. And that’s a whole different world featuring K-pop shops and trendy restaurants that sell street food that’s popular in Korea at the moment.

Photos, the old, the things to look out for are the old signs from the sixties and seventies. The few that still remain in the older part of the shopping arcade. These are all hand lettered signs and they have a real nostalgic vibe. Now we are in down, this

Became popular about 10 years ago, and as you can see, many K-pop fans, many K-pop sha, the way there are Korean Americans or Italian Americans in the USA. So there’s the old and the new – Best – Chicken Osaka. Let’s check it out. – Is – That good? Yeah.

As you can see, this is a kimchi specialty shop. It’s very crowded. – Okay. Well, Matt, this was another great adventure. Thank you so much for taking me. – My pleasure. My – Pleasure. Photo watch TV viewers to Koreatown in Osaka, Japan. – Come back. We’ll be waiting for you.

– But we weren’t done. Matt actually had two other arcades he also wanted to show us. So stay tuned for that. A brief word from our sponsor, Paul’s photo. If you’re in the Los Angeles area or online, check out the retail store in Torrance or at Paul’s photo.com.

Paul’s is a full service camera shop. It develops film and makes prints, has educational classes. And I can’t thank Paul’s enough for its support. – This is a very old movie theater, probably going back to the sixties and seventies and after World War ii, they didn’t have movie posters or professionally made, designed.

So they had a sign painter or a movie poster painter paint an original artwork for each movie for the month or the week. And then, you know, it’s a week later, this will be painted over. And – They still – Do this. There’s still one person. There’s one person left.

He’s in his eighties. Yeah. And he is the last sign painter. So it’s kind of like a museum piece. – This is, they kept the shining up all – These, they kept the shining up. ’cause it’s probably one of his best shots. But, So this is, now we’re at Shin Kai Market

And a few, this had a lot of shuttered shops because as you know, the population in Japan is aging. And some of these shop owners don’t have a next of kin to take over the shop. So they end up, when the person passes away

Or is too old to run it, it ends up being shuttered. So this area for a long time had a lot of shuttered shops. But I had a friend, I have a friend, and he got the idea, we’ll put stalls in front of the shuttered shops.

Then you don’t have to renovate the insides, we’ll just put the stalls. So it revived the area. So it’s an example of a younger person, not gentrifying the area, but having a vision. So this is a Chinese stall? Yes. This is a Chinese stall, but there’s a pun because chuca is Chinese food.

Chuca. But chu means kiss. Oh, right. Kiss. So it’s the kissy Chinese food with a kiss. Devil. – Devil. – But back then, yeah. Pots, the Japanese Giza is like, – So we’re about to eat some Za. Do you know what that is?

– I have no, I I have no idea. What is it? It looks like a piece of chicken. It looks like a, A dumpling. – It’s a, it’s a pot sticker. You know what a pot sticker is? – That means a sticker that’s on top of a pot.

– You know, it’s a little, little wrapped up. Little piece of meat wrapped up. But in this case, we have some cheese on top. Oh, – Great. So, okay. – It’s very exciting. – It’s pretty exciting. And I’ve never seen a pot sticker with cheese.

Well, it’s coming. It’s coming. Okay, here we go. Okay, – Jeffy. Here comes the choo hoo. Popo sushi. Okay. Woo. Very good. – Being the Osaka is considered the kitchen of Japan. Well, food tends to take center stage when you visit food Osaka. – It’s sushi, it’s ramen,

It’s taiyaki ta taco meaning octopus infused balls. It’s okonomi miyaki as you like style, Japanese pancake. It’s ebb temperate shrimp. It’s everything. But it’s not just that. Now it is almost everything that’s coming in on top of Osaka in building West – Can tell you why Osaka is considered the kitchen of Japan.

– Osaka was the original port that opened up Japan to trade and opened it up to the Tang Dynasty ships. So envoys of ships came through here long, long before the country was closed down. The Samurai closed it down for about 200 years,

And then it was reopened to Commander Perry came over here. But we were always the kitchen here. We always had the trade, we always had the spices, we always had the food. I mean, it’s all here. It’s always been here. Another reason, and I just wrote another article about this,

Is the abundance of the Osaka Bay. We’ve got the fish garden here. So on the terms of trade and on the terms of running things up through the country, it used to come through Osaka. Osaka is just a meile city who built upon their trade skills

And built upon their, how do you say, the cooking back background and all the fish and all the rice, everything that was cultivated started. Here it is indeed the kitchen of Japan. And you’re standing right here on top of the soil that started it. – Okay. And speaking of food,

That unique dinner in this really out of the way, place for real. Okay. – Okay. So where is this restaurant? I don’t see any signs anywhere. Jefferson. It’s right in here. In here, in here. One of the best restaurants in town. One of the best restaurants in town.

And you would never find it without local knowledge. So let’s go in hidden secret Osaka. Yes. All righty. Is that it with the red? That’s it. That’s it. And the T-shirts. The T-shirts. Okay. Ah, hey. Yeah. Hi. Hello. Good, see you. This is Jefferson Sam. – You are looking at the ingredients at

What is called a robot athi restaurant, where a bunch of people will sit around the barbecue, the grill, as the chef cooks his masterpiece. Basically a collection of fish and vegetables. You generally have a time limit of how long you can spend there, but it is friendly

And communal and one of the great, only in Japan experiences that everybody needs to check out. – I’m glad Photo Walks got to experience a bonang kai in Osaka, Japan at a very special place. – Japanese tv. The celebrities always have the same reaction they say, or am I?

So now I’m gonna show you how it’s done, but I’m sure. – So I’ve been in Japan for five years and this is the first bone in Kai I’ve been to. So I’d like to thank everybody, especially Matt, for putting this together. And this, this store has the best fish cake

That I’ve ever eaten in my entire five years in this country. This, this experience is something that, especially this restaurant here would, would not be something I feel would be easily available in Tokyo or Kyoto – Beyond Food. Osaka happens to sport the best light show in the world.

Even more neon intense than Tokyo. Don’t believe me. Check it out. And if you thought that was intense, well check out the shopping experience at the Asian based Don Kte stores. I’m guessing you’ve never seen anything like it. Here’s what you wanna know about Don Quixote.

There’s over 600 of the stores in Japan and Asia, mostly in big cities. And it’s known by the nickname Donkey. The merchandise will run the gamut from toys, makeup, and Pokemon items to food, smartphone cases, clothing, and you name it. The company that owns Donkey Pan Pacific Limited

Describes its approach to retailing as one to give customers quote, a feeling of thrill and excitement as if you’ve just wandered into a jungle, unquote, I’ll say sensory overload, complete with crazy, crazy signs in a unique theme song. Now, beyond Donkey Pan Pacific also owns a major Los Angeles

Grocery chain, Gelson’s, which is known for uncluttered wide aisles in gourmet items. It’s the antithesis of donkey, but is it as much fun? I don’t think so. Before we said goodbye to Osaka, Matt and Wess wanted us to meet one more time for one more dinner, not for Ramen, not for sushi,

But for what they said, were the best kebabs are anywhere. – This guy right here is doing kebab like no other kebab area around Osaka. This guy’s got it, and that’s why we put him on the map. We put him on the map as another immigrant coming over here

With just as basic working skills and coming over here and making something big. I mean, this guy’s big – 3, 3, 1. Normal one, please. Three. Okay. Of course, big city. But if you was, oh, she sucks at her. What did I off Kab? Hmm. – The kebabs really were amazing.

And to top it off, Mohammad’s Ice Cream Show slash Trick. Check it out. – That’s amazing. That’s, this is Turkish ice cream show. Yeah. Yes. Ice cream show. Very good ice cream show. Thank you very – Much. Missionary – Osaka will be host to the upcoming World Expo in 2025.

If you’re thinking of going, be sure to check out our other Osaka videos, part one and part two for tips on what to see and photograph. Also good to note that Kobe is about a half hour away by train, and it should be a way cheaper place to stay during the expo.

It’s also incredibly picturesque. So do me a favor and catch our Col Bay episodes as well. Stay tuned because here they come.