Osaka Insider: A Travel Guide for Osaka Prefecture has actually be finished for over a month now, but thanks to a series of screw-ups at the printer (whom I won’t mention by name), it has been delayed until now. I am in the process of trying to get this problem resolved. It will be available as soon as possible–I apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience.
Despite the fact that I’ve been living and writing in Fukuoka since early 2011, I have also been working on a thorough Osaka Prefecture guidebook for sightseers and foreign residents, titled Osaka Insider: A Travel Guide for Osaka Prefecture. It will cover Osaka City and the surrounding prefecture in detail, giving you information you can’t find anywhere else on interesting things to see and do. I have visited each destination personally and engaged in a massive amount of research to ensure that you can see the best Osaka has to offer, and the guidebook’s rating system for each destination helps travelers determine where to go first. There will also be detailed information for visitors coming to Japan for the first time, ramen and okonomiyaki restaurant guides, walking maps for the historical and retro buildings of the Kitahama/Yodoyabashi/Nakanoshima area, a few short essays and more!
I have added a new page to this site where you can access online maps for every destination and restaurant listed in the guide. This is meant to be used in conjunction with the printed guidebook when it is published, but you can browse it now to get an idea of what the guidebook will contain.
Look for Osaka Insider: A Travel Guide for Osaka Prefecture in late 2011 or early 2012!
The new blog is up! Please take a look at Finding Fukuoka, where I will be writing on Fukuoka and Kyushu from my new home in Yakuin, Fukuoka City. You have all been supportive and wonderful readers as I struggled to get Osaka Insider off the ground, and I hope you will show the same support for Finding Fukuoka. Thanks again for reading!
あけましておめでとうございます！！ (Happy New Year!!)
I have some sad but exciting news for all my readers out there: I will be leaving Osaka at the start of February, and relocating to Fukuoka (that’s in Kyushu, for those who don’t know). Naturally, I will no longer be continuing blog updates about Osaka and Kansai, because I will be living outside of this area for some time.
I am, however, working on the website portion when time permits, and if possible I will still put up the tourism section of the site. All of the text is written, I just need to build the pages, finish up a few maps, and proofread and fact-check everything as much as possible.
I also intend to undertake a new, similar blogging project in Kyushu in a couple of months, once I have finished my traveling and have settled down in my new apartment over there. Links to that blog will be put up here on Osaka Insider.
It has been great writing for all of you, and I will keep this site up as a reference for visitors to and residents of Kansai, in hopes that they can enjoy Osaka as much as I have.
Thanks again for all your support, and best of luck to each and every one of you in 2011!
P.S. Anyone who has a cool blog name suggestion for my Fukuoka project, drop me a line! I can’t really call myself an “Insider” over there because I know hardly anything about the place yet. 
Accessible Japan is a highly useful, much-needed English-language site specializing in sightseeing, lodging, and other tourism-related information for travelers who require wheelchair accessibility. I stumbled across this site by pure chance, and because many travelers require this kind of information, I decided to post the link here (it’s also been added to my links section on the right). Not only does it provide information on locations of ramps, availability of rental wheelchairs and accessible toilets, information on inclines and other landscape characteristics, and other such information, it also has a lot of good general recommendations and advice for tourists.
If accessibility is an obstacle that has prevented you from making the journey to Japan, I suggest you check out this site. Be sure to take a look at their extensive links sections, as well.
Accessible Japan is put up by TESCO Premium Search Co., Ltd., a company that aims to provide job opportunities for people with disabilities.
Just in case you have time to kill at work or elsewhere, here are two live webcams I’ve found for Osaka.
Osaka Insider here. It’s time for another progress report, where I make yet more excuses about why things are taking me so long 
As you can see, I have changed the design theme for my blog. I have done so for two reasons: (1) I wanted a better layout that allows for larger pictures and improved readability, and (2) I am finally starting to put together the main Osaka Insider website, which will be integrated with this blog upon release. I was originally planning on making it separately and then integrating the blog with the website later, but I’ve decided to stick with the free route and just create it with this blog at the center. I will probably get a domain name eventually, but seeing as how the website’s debut has been delayed more than predicted, I will just aim to get it up for the time being. Besides, I’m not doing this for money, so I don’t feel the need to start paying money for it unless I start receiving some first. I have had all the information and most of the photos gathered for a long time, and a majority of the text has been ready for awhile, but I haven’t had time to take care of all the little things.
The point is, I have started the tedious process of transferring all the info from the site I was building (using Dreamweaver) into WordPress, which will be followed by more rewriting, proofreading, and so forth. The blog will continue to be updated as usual.
Any thoughts on the new design? Feel free to e-mail me (see the “About section for contact info) or write a comment here! I personally like the straightforward, subdued design, and have also been influenced by the recent trend toward simplification (I’m sure you’ve noticed this with Google and Wikipedia, among others). The previous look seemed a bit dated, also.
I’m heading back to visit my homeland for the first time in two and a half years. Oregon, USA. So this time around, I’ll let some fellow bloggers do the talking for me.
Thanks to all you bloggers out there for continuing to provide insightful and fascinating content! For everyone in Japan: have a safe and enjoyable Golden Week vacation!
It’s come time to make my second progress report on the status of the Osaka Insider website.
But first I would like to call attention to two new features I have added to this blog: the e-mail subscription and RSS feed subscription buttons near the top of the sidebar. Using either (or both) of these features, you can conveniently monitor updates to my blog. The subscription function for individual post comments is still available as before. You can also find me on Twitter (username: osakainsider). I hope these features will make it easier for you, the reader, to follow and enjoy Osaka Insider.
The Osaka Insider website has not progressed as fast as I’d like, but that is mostly because I am not willing to cut corners and leave out information that may be useful to potential readers. The number of sightseeing spots and facilities to be included on the site at launch is approximately 120, which includes not only individual facilities and sites, but large sites comprising various facilities within (Banpaku Memorial Park, Namba underground shopping, etc). I have completed about 95% the pages for these sightseeing spots. Further, I have scrapped the labor-intensive idea of trying to make my own access maps for each place, and instead decided to use customized Google Maps for this feature–the folks over at Google obviously make way better maps than I can. I am starting to focus more on the gourmet and nightlife sections now, which is the bulk of the work remaining for the site. Speaking of nightlife and gourmet, I welcome any recommendations by Osaka residents or former residents, as I believe word of mouth is one of the best ways to get good information.
The purpose of my website is to provide a comprehensive database of information that can be easily accessed and utilized anytime by those who are in, plan to visit, or have interest in Osaka. I took much of my inspiration for this from japan-guide.com, which is an excellent site that provides concise and useful tourist information. This blog will become part of that site, providing a dynamic and flexible forum to report new things, write articles about Osaka and Japan in general, and supply fresh information. By combining the dynamic format of this blog with the extensive information provided by the website, I hope to create the best source of information. There is a tremendous lack of information regarding Osaka in English, and I hope to be the one who changes that. The site will, of course, expand beyond its already wide scope once I get the beast online. I have more than 100 other spots that I am not currently using at the site because there is not information available on them, I have not physically visited them, or because I am still evaluating them to see if they meet standards (I refuse to post poor recommendations just to inflate my sightseeing list).
I am also putting more effort into increasing traffic on this blog, and researching SEO stuff in preparation for my future site launch. One of the best resources for not only increasing blog readership but gaining inspiration and just entertaining myself throughout the week has been my fellow bloggers, whose links who can find in my blogroll on the right-hand side. It is these people who establish standards of quality to strive for, and who make the online community such a rich place.
You can read all website progress reports here.
As always, suggestions, comments, or ideas for what you want to see on this blog or on the website are welcome.
osakainsider AT gmail DOT com
I wish a happy New Year to all my readers! I hope 2010 will bring you success and happiness!
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