Osaka Audioguides

Osaka has always been different from Tokyo. Where Edo (now Tokyo) was the city of the shogun and the samurai, Osaka was the city of merchants, and it has never really recovered its dignity about this. The local phrase kuidaore, meaning roughly to eat oneself into ruin, is used as a form of civic pride. The Dotonbori canal area, with its enormous neon signs, mechanical crabs rotating over restaurant doors, and dense street food culture, is the concentrated expression of a city that decided centuries ago that eating and selling were the serious business.

The historical record goes much deeper.

Shitennoji temple, founded in 593 CE, is believed to be the oldest officially administered temple in Japan. Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine, established in 211 CE, predates Buddhism's arrival in Japan and features the oldest example of a distinctive architectural style that predates Chinese influence. Osaka Castle, built in 1583 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was the largest castle in Japan at its construction and remains the city's most visited monument, its white and green towers visible across the flat urban plain.