Osaka or Tokyo

[emiluvsjmusic]

Tabacco and Salt Museum

lol wtf? ^_^''

[noodle]

Originally Posted by anrakushi

just from reading through here i think there are a lot of misconceptions about osaka, i guess that is expected since everyone finds out about tokyo more so.

personally i would choose osaka, because i have lived in the kansai region while studying at university there and well frankly, kansaiben is just so nice. i have been heavily influenced by kansai people and i think i couldn't stand living in tokyo purely because of kantouben.. haha.

but yeah i mean the are both big cities, both full of gaijin. i would choose osaka if travelling is your thing. so much history and culture around the area. there certainly are clubs and that in osaka too, lots of fun to be had.

tokyo will be the last place i live. im planing to move back to japan next year, kansai will be my destination although miyazaki is looking appealing so i can keep up my surfing~

I see, thanks for that... You surf, so i was wondering is there anywhere near Osaka for surfing at all? If not, how far is the closest decent beach?

[anrakushi]

there is nothing that is terribly close to osaka, you would need to take a trip down the the wakayama breaks. these beaches, like most in japan, are very busy. they get all the osaka people coming down. however if you go out in the wet season with all the storms there will only be surfers out getting on the big swell. if you are up for a few hours travel in a different direction than shikoku is a good place to hit, but really a car is best for hitting either of these two places so you can get somewhere away from the crowds. check out this:
Japansurf.com - Everything you need to know about surfing in Japan!

[noodle]

Wicked, thanks... i didn't know that site existed...

I'll have to see when i have time, but i think it'll only be during the summer... but when you say busy, is it like dangerously busy so you have to watch every move you make as not to hit anyone busy or do you mean beach is busy with people tanning and the waters are not so busy!!!

[Sachiko]

Osaka deff.
hehehe.
Someone I love lives there.

[anrakushi]

i don't know what you are used to when you go surfing.. but i surf a lot in colder months and the crowds are minimal. in japan there are plenty of people competing for the waves.. and if you are at the main beaches in wakayama for example then you ahve a lot of swimmers on the hot days as well. summer is the ebst time for surfing on the pacific side of japan, because of the typhoons bringing in the swell.

[SSJup81]

Osaka, if given the choice between the two. I don't care for city life much and Tokyo strikes me as such.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by SSJup81

Osaka, if given the choice between the two. I don't care for city life much and Tokyo strikes me as such.

Then you probably wouldn't care for Osaka, either...

[anrakushi]

Originally Posted by MMM

Then you probably wouldn't care for Osaka, either...

so very true ^^ Osaka is very much city life also. I really curious how people imagine Osaka, Tokyo gets a lot of media exposure so people have some idea visually. It is interesting how people imagine things who haven't been there.

[samurai007]

Tokyo is over 10 million people as I recall, which is huge, sprawling as far as the eye can see. Osaka though has 2.6 million people, still a huge city. It has subways, all night discos, a smaller version of Akihabara called Den Den town, and most everything you'd find in any other big city. I'd say that Tokyo had more western restaurants than Osaka, but that's about it. Osaka is IMO in a part of Japan that is surrounded by history and nature, more so than Tokyo. A short train ride can take you to the beaches of Wakayama, the temples of Kyoto, Nara park, Himeji castle, Mt. Koya, Lake Biwa, and many other places. Maybe it's because I lived near Osaka and so I knew about all those things, while I was more of a stranger to the Tokyo area, but aside from Nikko, or heading into the Japan Alps, or climbing Mt. Fuji, (all of which are at least twice as far from Tokyo as the places I mentioned near Osaka), there just didn't seem to be much near Tokyo.