I spent a lazy long weekend in Osaka, playing tour guide to 5 noisy but 
otherwise delightful Italian girls. My ears are still ringing. Having 
nothing better to do during lunch, here are some thoughts...

Namba Parks - surprisingly, and despite the shopping hordes, it didn't 
suck. http://www.nambaparks.com The gardens were nice despite the 
pouring rain falling at the time, the architecture not too shabby. 
Perhaps I liked it only because of the distraction it provided from the 
rest of Osaka's skyline.

Guinness - The only free time I had was when I told the girls to go 
shopping, but if there is a place where you can obtain Guinness on tap 
in central Osaka between 5am and 5pm then it is a well kept (from me) 
secret.

Parking - A total of 14,300 yen is fair bit.

Flatulence - On rainy days, the crowded arcades of Shinsaibashi are a 
godsend. But when you are emitting chemical gases in quantities that may 
embarrass even the most antisocial of cows, a crowded arcade poses 
geo-positional challenges. Where is downwind etc?

Food - Made the whole weekend worthwhile.

"Obvious Foreigners" - Compared to Nagoya, or to bewdiful bumfuck 
Okazaki for that matter, there seemed to be surprisingly few of them. 
(In the Shinsaibashi, Umeda, and Tennoji areas etc on Sunday and Monday 
at least) Perhaps they were all out of town or recovering from drunken 
stupors? Looking at stats* though, Osaka's population of "non-Korean" 
foreigners as a percentage of total registrations does indeed seem to be 
tiny. Why though? Lack of corporate HQ?

http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/toukei/index.html


-- 
A hand on the bush is worth two birds on the arm.