No surprise, then, that the area plays host to throngs of foreigners.
A tourist from Taiwan visited Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe while in Japan.
Finding foreign tourists who are making minpaku stays in Japan is not difficult. In just two tries on June 16, I found Lin Chinpin, a 25-year-old graduate school student, and his girlfriend, both from Taiwan, in front of a lobster roll restaurant in a Shinsaibashi arcade. During their seven-day stay in Japan, they used a minpaku room for three nights in Osaka. The room, which they booked on Airbnb, was a small flat that cost them only 6,000 yen ($57.50) a night, a third of what they paid for hotels in Kyoto and Kobe. "I'm a student," Lin said, "so the cheaper the better.