For the peckish noodle pilgrim, paradise is Kinryu Ramen. Harrison Ford stopped here for a bowl of Golden Dragon noodles during the filming for the sci-fi movie Blade Runner and there are photographs of the chopstick-juggling star and crew tacked to the rafters of this cosy street kitchen to prove it. Step up to the vending machine, insert your 800 yen (HK$55), punch the button and hand over your ticket. Within minutes, one of the orange-haired staff in a red dragon shirt will have a steaming bowl of noodles in a miso broth under your nose. Condiments include minced garlic, Korean kimichi and spinach with fermented sesame seeds. Stand at the counter or take a seat at one of the low tables. Both offer excellent views of the neighbourhood street life.

3 Gadgets and gizmos

Nowhere do store shelves groan more heavily with the latest gizmos than in Nippombashi, also known as Den-Den Town (after the Japanese word denki, which means electricity). It's a place of perpetual brightness where neon signs sizzle, strobe lights dazzle and an excess of fluoro-tubes turns every outlet into a heavenly shopping experience for the thousands of tech-heads, cyber-junkies, computer-games geeks and tourists, who swarm in at weekends. A credit card-sized AM-FM radio in Mount Fuji or geisha design? How about a solar-powered jellyfish?

4 Ready to rumble

Osaka's Municipal Gymnasium is the place to watch the big boys rumble during the first two weeks of March each year, when the national sumo basho (tournament) comes to town. Picking up 4,100 yen single seats, located back from the ring, or 1,400 yen standing tickets is easier if you buy directly from the gymnasium box office, open from 9am to 4pm on the day of each event. Serious sumo fans start queueing at 6am. Bouts are short, lasting from only 4pm to 6pm in total, but there's no shortage of sumo rice crackers, posters and other souvenirs on sale to help you remember the moment the Earth shook.

5 Fatal attraction?

Consider the ancient Japanese proverb: 'Those who eat fugu are stupid. But those who don't eat fugu are also stupid.' The toxin contained in the organs of fugu, or puffer fish, is said to be 1,300 times deadlier than cyanide. Worry not at Zuboraya, Osaka's best-known purveyor of fugu cuisine, where the chefs are certified to prepare the fish safely. Recommended as the standard aperitif is hire-zake, a heady brew of toasted fugu fins stewed in hot sake, followed by crispy fugu skin with a citrus dipping sauce, called teppi. If the grilled fugu sperm option doesn't grab you, proceed to Zurobaya's speciality, tecchiri nabe, a bubbling casserole of fugu, vegetables, tofu and noodles. A three-course meal costs about 10,000 yen per head.

6 Groovy threads

Amerika-mura, or Amemura as laid-back youths call it, is Osaka's place for the serious fashionista. It begins west of Shinsaibashi subway station and stretches all the way from Nagahori-dori Street down to the Dotonbori River. Chaos reigns at weekends, when more than 200,000 cashed-up and clothes-hungry fashion fiends flood into the maze-like streets and alleys to pick through 3,000 shops selling everything from Balinese sandals to Boston bowling club jackets, Zippo lighters and zebra-striped g-strings. For a more permanent souvenir try Chop Stick Tattoo, where staff create some of the headiest skin art in the world. With prices hovering about one million yen for a full-back tattoo of a scowling ronin (masterless samurai) or a sultry geisha, it's some of the most expensive too.

7 Ancient architecture

Nothing represents Osaka's rise from feudal kingdom to buzzing hub of international trade better than the Osaka-jo koen, or Osaka Castle Park, a two-minute subway ride from Umeda station. An oasis of cherry and plum tree-lined boulevards and water-filled moats, at the centre of which stands Osaka Castle, is the last thing you'd expect to find in a sea of ferro-concrete. In the castle's central dojon, or tower, a museum screens epic 16th-century samurai battles as 3D laser shows, alongside exhibits of the original pitted and dented armour used in the skirmishes. Opening hours are 9am to 5pm daily and admission is 400 yen.

8 Modern architecture

The Arc de Triomphe of Japan, they call it. Indeed, any feeling of triumph at the Umeda Sky Building comes only after you brave the vertigo-inducing escalator ride between the two chunky, but by no means ugly, 173-metre towers. 'A city in the air' was what architect Hiroshi Hara had in mind when he began the project in 1988, complete with aerial walkways, hanging gardens and suspended escalators. The Floating Garden Observatory rings the rooftop and affords Osaka's best night view. Opening hours are 10am to 11.30pm and admission is 700 yen.

9 Soak it up

Before leaving Osaka, ease your swollen feet with a wallow in a hot tub at Shimizu-yu Bath House, opposite the OPA department store in Amerika-mura. As you enter, an elderly cashier will relieve you of 300 yen and direct you to the second-floor changing rooms. Be warned: before entering the wonderful, brimming hot tubs you must undergo the curious ritual of riding an elevator to the third-floor bathroom ... naked.

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