Namba Walk

This guide to Namba Walk in Osaka opens with the nine frantic days before the 1970 World's Fair, when workers rushed to finish an underground passage first known as Rainbow Town beneath the street above you. It follows the corridor's 1994 renaming to Namba Walk, the same year Kansai International Airport opened, and traces which of its roughly two hundred twenty shops have been trading since that first chaotic morning. Look for the whale sculpture at Kujira Park, a nod to the right whales that once swam through Osaka Bay.