Chou Chou > Tower Knives > tempura, ice cream and more ice cream
After the massive amount of walking the previous day, we decided to take it easy and do… a less massive amount. It would be an easygoing sort of day with nothing scheduled, just exploring the city and looking forward to the arrival of our friends, Mannix and Clarisse.
Jordan found a place for breakfast called Chou Chou and we fell in love with it right away. It’s a small place with two women working behind the counter. It left like we just walked into our Tita (aunt) or Lola’s (grandma’s) house. We sat at the counter, ordered our brunch, and watched in fascination as the older woman (who will be referred to as our Japanese Tita from here on in) make siphon coffee.
The coffee was then served in the daintiest teacup and teaspoons along with a small tray holding light brown sugar and tiny cups of cream. The food came on colorful, mismatched plates and both our dishes were delicious. They tasted like simple comfort food that soothed our souls apart from filling out tummies.
Locals seemed to frequent the cafe. A group of Japanese Titas were having animated conversations behind us, for which the owner apologized due to the noise but I waved her off with a smile. “Kawaii desu!” And they were really cute. I found myself hoping that I would have my own posse like this when I am older and that my mother still enjoys this kind of camaraderie with her friends today.
To walk off our brunch, we headed towards a small temple hidden in Hozenji Yokocho (shopping alley). Hozenji is unusual for its stone-paved street and being lined with shops that kept their traditional look. The little temple at the end of the street is a busy spot as locals pass by to worship its unique moss-covered god. Mizu-kake Fudo, as it turns out, is based on the Buddhist deity Fudo, the kami of fury. He can protect from evil and grant wishes. People splashed the statue with water, which explained why it was covered with moss.
We began walking south to Shinsekai to visit Tower Knives, which was closed during our walking tour the night before. On the way, we also stopped by the Retro Arcade and I played my old favorite: Sega’s Outrun. Apparently, I still can’t get past the first checkpoint after all these years of actually driving for real. 😆
It never fails to surprise me how different a city can look/feel when you visit at day vs. night (and vice versa). Shinsekai without its bright lights and over-the-top vibe looked like any other part of the city, but perhaps I don’t have the sensibilities of a local to pick up on why it’s considered one of the most dangerous places in Japan. It didn’t look any shabbier or dirtier than the other neighborhoods to me.
Tower Knives is really fun, especially if you cook. The company was started by a European transplant in 2012 and has since gained a following for one of the best knife stores in Japan featuring a staff that all speak English. We were introduced to the different types of knives and I realized why one of the heavy cleaver-type knives I got as a gift has never been a favorite of mine: it has a one-sided blade.
I salivated over a beautiful set of chisels that I definitely do NOT need and learned that there is a hardware festival held in Miki city in Hyogo prefecture every year where one can buy all manner of tools, from chisels to saws to planes, garden shears and hatchets, most likely swords too…! 😍 My amateur woodworking heart skipped a few beats, making a note to time a future visit to Japan to coincide with this festival so I can geek out over tools that will probably be too heavy to shlep back home.
Jordan picked a couple of knives to try and they set him up with carrots and tomatoes on one of their cutting boards at the counter. We both tried the knives and they were definitely among the sharpest and lightest we’ve ever used. When asked which one he wanted to buy, I was surprised when he said, “Both.” It’s not like we don’t have enough knives at home! We ended up having our names engraved on the knives as well. The Japanese language has an entire phonetic alphabet for foreign terms, and so our names look very cool in katakana.
I had decided to get a pocket knife as a souvenir (because I didn’t know Jordan was going to get both kitchen knives!) and had my name engraved on that too, since ファニー・コア “fa-ni ko-a” is short enough to fit on the little blade of a higonokami. These traditional folding knives are only manufactured in Nagao Kanekoma in Miki City, the 1500-year old blacksmithing capital of Japan. (Mitsuo Nagao is the main blacksmith and a 5th generation craftsman.) Until the 1950s, kids carried them around (!) for shaving pencils before the government considered the higonokami a weapon and outlawed letting children carry them. We really enjoyed seeing the workshop in the back of Tower Knives where the staff sharpened blades, attached handles at the kiln, etc. aside from engraving names for customers.
After leaving the store, we finally found a place to scratch the itch for soft serve ice cream: Cafe Tonari no Tonari. It is just down the street and serves matcha, strawberry, and Hokkaido milk ice cream along with a plethora of other dessert options. Its space flows into a huge souvenir store that has spaces set up with retro furniture like a house from the 80s. Guests can sit in these rooms with their coffee and ice cream… because why not?
We got word that Mannix and Clarisse arrived in Osaka and were making their way to the hotel, so we started walking back from Shinseibashi to Nippombashi. It’s only one subway stop apart and it was fun exploring the shops along the way.
It turns out we were walking through Denden Town, the part of Osaka located in the heart of the Nippombashi neighborhood that is known as geek central. Not only were there many stores that exclusively sold action figures, trading cards, or manga, but also restaurants like the Shisha Cafe Geek and definitely more than one “Maid Cafe” where the servers are dressed in black and white maid outfits. We spotted locals in cosplay just going about their day. I love that Japanese cities have a dedicated neighborhood for these devoted fans to congregate, geek out, and enjoy their obsessions with like-minded people. The stores are so well-stocked that it will probably blow the minds of people who appreciate each specialty.
Along the way, a shop selling miso caught my eye. They had the different flavors/types laid out in bins within a refrigerated case, just like gelato. Jordan found a “hi-fi” store with turntables and speakers, so I gave the Audio Ass (as his family refers to him) a few moments alone to savor the experience. We discovered that Joshin, one of the big electronics stores, had a branch in the neighborhood too so we went in to look for an electric shaver. (Someone thought he wouldn’t want to shave throughout the trip and changed his mind.) I spent an inordinate amount of time with my hands in these electric hand massagers wondering if I could justify getting these as a business expense. They reminded me of waffle irons except they have padding and if you stick your hand inside, it squished and rolled out the muscles in the best way. If it hadn’t been so bulky, bringing it home would be a no-brainer.
We finally got to our hotel and met up with Mannix and Clarisse. They’d taken the shinkansen in from Tokyo and were kind enough to get us tickets for the next day. We had booked a walking tour of the Funishi Inari shrine in Kyoto and since Jordan and I had never taken the bullet train, we wanted to try it even though Kyoto and Osaka are only an hour apart with the regular trains. (A lot of people commute for work between the two cities.)
It was a pleasant, low-key evening spent wandering around Namba. We went into a Daiso, the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store, to pick up an envelope to put money in for our tour guide the next day (as instructed). It is a wonderland of not just stationery, but household and personal care items. Most things are 100 yen (less than $1) unless specified. Dinner was at Tempura Tarojiro where you could customize what kind of tempura you wanted. Then we meandered around the Dotombori until we burned off enough room to have dessert… which was at Chichi, a little place along a brightly lit alley where we got soft serve ice cream. I discovered that I liked hojiha (roasted matcha) better than regular matcha.
On the way back to our hotel, the b Namba Kuromon, we remembered that it was almost right across the famous Kuromon Market in Osaka. As it was already late, the only place open was a grocery store.
Namba can be overwhelming with its massive number of shops, restaurants, and people. It was lovely spending a day with no agenda and just explore the city. It was a gift to spend time catching up with good friends in such a memorable setting too.