What to do in Osaka, Japan's ‘culinary capital', from Dotonbori's chaos to the castle
Osaka can feel like a constant assault on the senses, an impression that is sometimes cemented after just a few hours of being in Japan's third biggest city.
The Shinsekai quarter – which served as the city's entertainment district long ago – in the south of the city, for example, is filled with shops and restaurants covered in colourful neon, Japanese calligraphy, manga characters and comic book heroes.
Ducking into specialist shop Tower Knives, which sells handcrafted knives with blades as hard as they are sharp, can feel like a reprieve from the mayhem. The store is named after the neighbourhood's Tsutenkaku Tower.
Bjorn Heiberg, the Canadian owner of Tower Knives, says that people from all over the world visit his store. The
quality of Japanese knives is unrivalled – and when it comes to prepping food, every cut needs to be perfect. But more on that later.
The Tsutenkaku Tower is the tallest landmark in Osaka's Shinsekai neighbourhood. Photo: Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau/dpa
The original Tsutenkaku Tower, built in 1912, looked like a hybrid of Paris' Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. After it sustained fire damage, a replacement was built in 1956. Since then, the eight-sided, 103-metre (338-foot) tall structure has been one of the area's defining landmarks.
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