Daiso is a hundred yen store in Japan, the equivalent of a dollar store. Unlike Australian dollar stores where nothing actually costs a dollar, pretty much everything costs a hundred yen. There are some exceptions, but they are clearly marked with the price and are often good value too. And you can get everything there, from awesome stationary, kitchen goods, gardening goods, bathroom goods, make up, laundry goods. The list goes on. Yes, I am a fan of the 100 yen stores.

Daiso, however, is also an awesome place for amusing English. Even though there is a “no photography” sign at the front door (well, I assume this from a picture of a camera with a line through it), the English on these is just begging for their photos to be taken. And they shouldn’t complain because I definitely spend up big there. Turns out 100 yen (plus 5 yen tax) an item can add up…

The stationary, my favourite part of the store, is a source of awesome English. This one says “Two bears went to the travel of the sky. It is very happy feelings.”

“This notebook might be wonderful writing feelings for you.” On the front cover of a book meant for writing English in. Fantastic.

“Unintentionally with idividuality and nonchalantly with sensibility.” I wish I knew what they originally put into google translator to make this come out. I wonder if the people making this stationary can speak perfect English but do this kind of stuff for fun. It could be fun to do with my job too…

Moving away from stationary to dog atire. And what dog wouldn’t look stylish and warm in a little jacket that says “wanko”.

And to end we are at animal repellent. Have pesky cats annoying you? Well, get yourself some “Don’t Cat.” Cat’s are surely to don’t.

Maybe it is just me but I was also amused by this. It’s fireworks for repelling birds and beasts. “It’s very effective against wild boars, monkeys and crows.”

They are modeling for a fashion line called “Russ-K”.

There are lots of videos out there at the moment of their ads. I quite liked this one of them all dancing.

Let’s go shopping at the local grocery store! At my local you use baskets – either carry them or put them on the trolley. Luckily the grocery store is pretty close so I don’t have to buy large quantities of items at a time.

Mmmm chu hai Having alochol in the supermarkets is novel for me, even though there are states in Australia, as well as many other places in the western world that does this. Fairly large selection if you are into beer or sake.

Cheese! I have heard that cheese can be hard to find in Japan. Well, not in my Japan. I have a wide selction of cheese from parmesan, camembert, to sliced plasticy goodness. All for what I percieve is a pretty reasonable price.

Meat is cheap, but tastes cheap too. I am planning to check out the local butchers for some better quality cuts.

There is a good selection of milk as well with both low fat and no fat avaliable.

Taco flavoured Doritos! There is a large selection of chips and lollies, some things familiar, lots of new things.

Bread only comes in this half loaf style with like 5-8 slices. If you get five slices, they are quite thick, or eight thinner slices. No crust bread in sight, or anything other than white. If you want to get adventerous with your bread, you are better off trying the many flavours of bread rolls you can get.

Assortment of cereals. The boxes are ten times smaller than those from home. And for some reason the kids at my school still don’t know what cereal is even though it is in the shops…

Beef here are all thinly sliced for ease of eating with chop sticks. Heavly marbled with fat too which is good for the taste bads but bad for the waist line/heart

Section for hot foods. Sitting in hot oily goodness. Who said that Japan was a healthy place?

Rice. Even though I live next door to rice, even though it is eaten at every meal, it is damn expensive here.

Some smellies. Some familiar brands. Make sure you read the katakana carefully though…

Here is some fruits and veges. The prices are expensive, but over all I don’t think they are as bad as I have heard prices can be. Also there are lots of stalls around here with fresh local fruit with decent prices. Fruits here are mostly large and very juicy.

At the end you pack your own bags. You can buy plastic bags for 5 yen each or you bring along your own bags. As I have previously been employed as a check out chick I am a pro at the awesome bag packing.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my local food place

I love Osaka at night. We were staying at Dotonbori and it is just awesome at night. Lots of people, bright lights, loud noises. Great food, and not so great food… Warning, lots of photos in this post!

Here’s a video of us coming back to our hotel room after riding the Hep 5 Ferris Wheel, and some of Osaka at night.

After a little rest from all the excitement of the day, the sun set and it was time to go out for some food and excitement. The above photo was our view from our hotel, the Hearton Hotel as the sun went down.

There are these long covered streets that go on forever filled with shops! It is a shopper’s dream. Too bad I was with non-shoppers and didn’t have as much money as I would have liked thanks to a bad exchange rate!

Uniqlo was recommended to us as a good cheap shop to go to to buy clothes. It actually reminded me of Cotton On, for those of us who live in a place where Cotton On is. Sort of generic plain clothing, but a huge store. Prices were so so as well. I mean, cheap in the way that Cotton On is cheap, not Supre cheap. Sorry I don’t have better examples but I can only explain things from my own world view!

At the circular bridge area after the shopping street and before the big food/lights area.

Well, I guess you could say this is the beginning of the big lights area.

The famous running man, the first photo in this post, was also here. This is where the first section of my video above was filmed.

One thing that I really noticed about Osaka was all the bikes! They were everywhere. Makes me :D because I am a bike person too. No, not motorbikes, push bikes.

I don’t have a photo of one, but the bikes here have stands that come down from both sides of the wheel, which is way better than them coming down from one side of the wheel like they do here. Bikes are always falling over here in Australia.

This was a line to one of the Takoyaki stands. Maybe the mistake I made when I ate takoyaki was that I didn’t line up here.

Big crab (note: lucky I proof read this) that moves. Aparently powered by bicycles. Wouldn’t surprise me.

In case you are unsure, we are now in the part with loud noises and lots of lights.

The way to advertise in Japan is to have bright flashing lights and loud music. Louder music, so you don’t get drowned out by the advertisement next to you.

Ramen. Mmmmm. I miss cheap, awesome, delicious ramen.

One great thing about obviously being a tourist/foreigner is that many people handing out flyers ignored us.

I most definitely recommend Osaka for a shopping enthusiast.

Hot food vending machine. Is actually a microwave that cooks frozen food. I wish we had more vending machines here in Australia, they are the best idea ever. I need an everything vending machine down the end of my street.

For dinner we had some yakisoba. Mmmmm.

Yes, I’m left handed.

And thus was our night adventures in Osaka! I was too exhausted to do much more – I had waaaaay too much excitement. If you want to see more awesome photos (huh) check out my Osaka gallery.