When I recently (controversially) claimed Osaka Castle as one of my favourites, I justified it on the grounds of having fantastic experiences there, and the most memorable of these was the night of the giant okonomiyaki! And I promised to give all the delicious details, so here goes.
One of my students, Tsuneo, told me all about the giant okonomiyaki record-breaking attempt to take place in the grounds of Osaka Castle during some kind of Japanese cultural festivity. He couldn’t make it but was very insistent that I went, and being a major fan of okonomiyaki (see a brief explanation of what it is; but to summarise, a kind of cabbage pancake), I didn’t take too much convincing. So, here’s what went on (with apologies for some below par photography – it was quite dark by the time it was ready):
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| Crowds gathered in Osaka-jo-koen |
The crowd started gathering in Osaka-jo-koen (Osaka Castle Park) long before I arrived – but being a Japanese crowd, it was suitably orderly, and me being obviously not Japanese, I was soon given special treatment and a good view.
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| A crane flips the giant okonomiyaki |
I was there in time to see the half-way mark of this cooking process – of what the sign proclaimed was an 8-metre okonomiyaki (they’re normally something like 25cm across!). It was a slow process and it obviously took longer than they expected as they checked it many times before actually flipping it.
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| Men adding sauce to the giant okonomiyaki |
When it was finished, several groups of men literally took cherry-picker lifts up into the air with bizarre hoses to spray the toppings on (including the most important, the brown okonomiyaki sauce. YUM! Oh, the mayonnaise is also quite important.)
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| Happy Japanese man with his piece of the giant okonomiyaki |
Finally – and it was quite late and quite dark by now, as it had (unusually for Japan) all taken longer than they had planned – I could line up to get my little piece of the giant okonomiyaki. I’m afraid I have to admit that by the time I got my piece it was cold and didn’t really taste as good as usual, but I was happy to have been there to make history! I’ve never actually seen for sure if it broke a record but I can’t imagine there is too much giant okonomiyaki making going on around the world, so I think I’m going to claim to have eaten a piece of the world’s biggest ever okonomiyaki!
oh wow that would have been quite a funny event to go to! i can imagine how orderly it was and when it didn’t go to plan people would have happily waited and waited and waited. Love that they had a crane with a fire hose to spray on the sauce – too funny!
now i must go make some okonomiyaki cause you have made me hungry – oh how i love okonomiyaki!!
Yep the crane was hilarious! How was your okonomiyaki?
Love it. I was gutted we didn’t make it to Osaka Castle. having to knock quite a few things off the list to keep everyone happy. Travelling with two little ones slows one down a lot 🙂
You’ve seen some way better stuff than Osaka Castle, Aleney, so don’t stress!