There are three different writing systems in Japan: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are phonograms and rather easy to learn because Japanese is phonetically limited. Hiragana and katakana are used to represent the exact same sounds, but they look different. Why have two different writing systems if they have the same sound? Katakana is usually used for foreign words. Kanji are ideograms and have several different pronunciations. You need to know about 2,000 kanji to read a newspaper in Japan. I used romaji (Japanese written using the English alphabet) in this trip report, and tried to be as accurate as possible, with the exception of proper nouns that are well known in English. Those are intentionally misrepresented if that's how we know them in the U.S. (e.g., Osaka is really Oosaka and Kyoto is really Kyouto).
I tried to be accurate with place names, but sometimes it's confusing. The -shi prefix in Hirakatashi means city, but I don't know if they literally mean the name of the place is Hirakata City or if the -shi was just added so people knew that train station was the main one for the town. If there was a -shi I took it literally.
Osaka is the name of a prefecture in Japan and also the name of the largest city in the Osaka prefecture, but in Japanese the name of the prefecture is Osakafu and the name of the city is Osakashi so there's no confusion. I'm referring to the city as Osaka and since I'll never mention the prefecture there won't be any confusion.
In Japan the currency is called en, not yen. Since there isn't an HTML entity for the en symbol I used the yen symbol (¥) instead.
I woke up at 3:30 in the morning after only getting 3 hours of sleep. It wasn't difficult because I always find it easy to wake up for a trip (probably because of enthusiasm). Lynn woke up 15 minutes after I did and the prospect of my leaving made her nervous and uncomfortable; we hadn't really been apart since I moved in with her.
We left for the airport at 4:30 and when we got to the airport Lynn was crying during our goodbyes. The night before Lynn had mentioned that this was going to be the longest we've been away from each other and as I walked into the terminal I felt the weight of her impending absence. As I stood in line to check my bag I watched her in the car and felt depressed that she couldn't come with me. That surprised me because I didn't feel guilty about going without her. I was still depressed at the gate (I think one of the more subtle losses of 9/11 is that family and friends can no longer sit with you at the gate anymore), but at the same time I was happy to know that my feelings for Lynn ran deeper than I even knew.
During the flight to SFO I got a little hungry so I ate a couple of the brownies that Lynn made for me and Steve. They were tasty, but not very satisfying; they reminded me of the fiancee I just left and the fact that I wanted real food. When we landed the first thing I wanted to do was find my gate. It didn't take much effort to find out my gate number, 96, but I was surprised to find out that the gates only went up to 90. I wandered the terminal, passing a lot of restaurants that didn't look good to me, looking for the gates numbered above 90. I found the gates in the international terminal which was cut off from the rest of the airport. I doubted there was any food to be had there so I stopped at a combination cafe/bookstore for a bite to eat. I sat eating a peroshiki, listening to horrible club music, and writing. I wasn't in a hurry to see what was beyond the security checkpoint because I had over three hours until my next flight. I thought there might have been some interesting people watching at the gate though. There was only so much writing I could do without being in Japan so I got bored and went to my gate.
After getting searched at the security checkpoint because my nail clippers must have looked dangerous when they x-rayed my bag I learned I was wrong about two things: there are shops and restaurants in the international terminal, and there wasn't any interesting people watching because I was the only person at the gate. I got up to chapter one in my Japanese textbook before I got too bored to continue studying. Two hours before the flight I was still the only person at the gate. Since I had already finished one of the books I brought on the flight to SFO I started Peter Mayle's "French Lessons".
Twelve hours on an airplane isn't so bad if you have adequate distraction. I was surprised there were plenty of cute Japanese women on the flight. Of course women might not have been the correct term since I have a difficult time telling whether Japanese women are 15 or 25. Most of the time I was actually reading "French Lessons", which put me to sleep three times during the first three hours of the flight. I was halfway through the book when I decided it was too boring to finish on the flight. I don't know why, but it just failed to capture my attention. It should have considering the subjects were food and wine. Instead of reading I checked out the entertainment console in the seat in front of me. Fourteen music channels and ten video channels, and the most entertaining thing I could find was some movie named "The Banger Sisters".
Lunch was served and it was much better on United than the lunch I had on US Air. The entree choices were beef and potatoes or chicken and rice. The chicken smelled pretty good, but it's really easy to ruin rice. I wish there wasn't some unwritten food rule stating that potatoes only go with beef and chicken and fish have to be served with rice. Personally I love potatoes with everything and I love wild rice with beef. Anyway, the beef was what you'd expect of airline food, but the potatoes with cheddar and the black bean and corn thing were pretty decent. I would have eaten the salad if the low fat salad dressing wasn't so terrible. The grapes, wheat bun, wheat crackers, and baby Gouda weren't bad. The cheesecake was unexpectedly delicious; a pineapple cheesecake which had only a hint of pineapple. A couple of hours after lunch they gave us shortbread and orange Italian ice and vanilla ice cream cups. The shortbread was tasty and the frozen dessert was good, but not as good as Henry Weinhard's orange cream soda.
During the flight I knocked over my soda getting it on my shorts, shoes, seat, and backpack. The lady sitting next to me was nice enough to get lots of napkins several times so I could soak it up. While eating the Italian ice a piece of orange ice shot out of the cup and melted on my shirt. Luckily the shirt I was wearing was orange, but it just wasn't my day.
I started reading "Memoirs of a Geisha" and it was a very intriguing book that kept me awake for the rest of the flight.
The last meal on the airplane consisted of a hot sandwich, fresh fruit, Oreos, and orange juice. The sandwich wasn't good, but I ate as much of it as I could stand because I didn't know when I'd get to eat again. I was surprised at how much of an appetite you can have just sitting in the same position for 12 hours.
I arrived at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay with one of the softest landing I'd experienced. I didn't realize I needed to fill out some government form so when I got to the customs officer I had to go back and fill it out. I thought the customs people would speak some English, but if they did they seemed reluctant to use it. Eventually I got out of customs and had to change cloths because it was hot in Phoenix, but very cold in Japan. Plus my shorts were still damp from the soda. When I cleared customs Steve was there to pick me up. Before we left the airport I hit an ATM machine and picked up my cash for the trip.
Steve only reluctantly picked me up at the airport. He wanted me to find my own way to the train station by the host family's house and gave me shit because I didn't feel up to it. It was a good thing I insisted he pick me up because we had trouble finding the correct train to Osaka and he told me he got lost on his way to the airport. If he lived in Japan for over six months, knew significantly more Japanese than I did, and he was still getting lost what chance did I have? Once we found the correct train we spent 2 to 3 hours on a couple of different trains before we got to our station. It was so overcast that I didn't see the sun after my arrival.
Steve's host family lived in Hirakatashi [Hirakata City] northeast of Osaka. We got off at the Gotenyama station and Steve's host mom (I'll just refer to her as Okaasan [Japanese for mother] from now on) picked us up in a car so I didn't have to lug my 45 pound bag up a hill to their house. Steve took over driving when we got in the car. They drive on the left side of the road in Japan and Steve drove fast enough to scare the crap out of me.
When we got to the house Okaasan made us dinner. We had tonkatsu [panko coated fried pork], korokke [potato croquette] (coated in panko and stuffed with mushrooms and onions), a small salad with wakame [chewy seaweed], sashimi (scallops, shrimp, yellow tail, salmon, tuna, squid, and red snapper), and Japanese beer (Kirin "Ichiban" and Asahi "Super Dry"). All the food was really good and the sashimi was especially delicious. Steve said it was probably because it was really fresh. I don't know what the reason, but it was the best experience I'd had with sashimi. The red snapper was my favorite, but the scallops were a close second. The shrimp and the squid had a nasty texture, which was the same as my previous experience with those proving that some things will never taste good. The Asahi was super light without much flavor and the Kirin was also super light, but with a little hoppiness. They were both pretty good, but for some reason the beer was really hitting me. I think it had something to do with being up for over 24 hours.
Steve clued me in that I should bring a present (omiyage) for his host family so I brought a domino set for Okaasan (she loved the game ever since Steve taught her how to play) and a bottle of tequila for Steve's host dad (Otousan [father]). Even though I was tired we played a couple of games of dominoes. I was the closest to winning the two games we played, but both Steve and Okaasan came from behind to win a game. Bastards.
I went to sleep on a futon, which wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as you would expect. Japanese futons are different from American ones because they're thin and meant to be folded up for storage. Steve warned me about the rice husk pillows so I brought my own pillow. If anything caused discomfort it was how cold it was in the room. If I lived in Japan I'd have to have central heating.
)
I woke up 6:30 in the morning due to the time zone change and it was cold enough in the house for me to see my breath. I had to take a shower regardless of how cold it was so I hoped they had plenty of hot water. I had to walk down the staircase sideways because the stairs were really narrow. The steps were seriously less than half the size of my feet. I kept hitting my head on the low doorways so I had to stoop every time I entered a room.
The shower area had a tiny room to take your clothes off with a shower door that led to a tiled room with a drain in the center, a Japanese bathtub, a small plastic stool, a couple of plastic buckets, and a hand shower. I was lucky because while the Japanese don't seem to believe in central heating they do believe in copious amounts of hot water because it never ran out. At some point it got so steamy I had to open the window.
The toilet was in a separate room all by itself next to the room with the shower. You could either push or pull the handle for a small flush or a big flush depending on what you needed to flush down. I could never remember which was which because they weren't marked. There was also a water spout that came up out of the top of the toilet tank to fill the tank through a hole in the top of the tank cover. I assumed its purpose was so you could wash your hands after you used the bathroom since the sink was located in a different room in the back of the house. It seemed like an extremely practical idea to use the water that was just going into the toilet anyway, but there wasn't any place to put a bar of soap. In case you missed it I thought it was weird that the toilet, shower, and sink were all located in different parts of the house.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
After my shower I walked around the neighborhood a bit. It was a cute neighborhood of small houses. Afterwards Okaasan made me a sandwich (a modest collection of meat, lettuce, and mayonnaise with four slices of bread with the crusts cut off) and hot tea. The sandwich was pretty good and Okaasan and I talked a bit.
I noticed that the rice cooker was on the night before and it was still on in the morning. I wondered if it was on 24 hours a day and if that was typical of Japanese households.
)
)
Steve had class for a couple of hours in the morning so I passed the time at his school. Steve was going to Kansai Gaigokugo Daigaku [Kansai Foreign Language University] (or Kansai GaiDai for short) and there wasn't much to say about the school besides that it looked just like any other school. I got bored waiting so I explored the neighborhood a little. That's when I learned I hate being illiterate. Not being able to read signs made me feel like there was a barrier between me and the rest of the world. I didn't feel like I was so much walking as floating through another world. It was disconcerting and I didn't care for the feeling at all.
When Steve got out of class he took me to one of his favorite restaurants for lunch, Curry House CoCo Ichibanya (or CoCo Ichi for short). We walked up to the restaurant and they had a sliding glass door that was touchpad activated. I thought it was an novel blending of the modern with traditional. We were greeted when we walked in and we found ourselves a seat at a booth. A waitress brought out menus and oshibori [moist hot towels]. The hot towels were for cleaning our hands before our meal. It was probably the most civilized touch I've ever had for a meal and I wish we did that in the US.
I didn't have a problem reading the menu because there were pictures and a lot of the menu items were written in katakana. Our waitress brought us an English language menu anyway. There's a process for ordering at CoCo Ichi: first you decide which curry you want (pork or beef), then the amount of rice, and finally how hot you want it. The heat scale went from 0 to 10 and I was lucky that Steve warned me about how hot it was because my normal inclination would be to order a 7. At CoCo Ichi you can't even eat above a 5 at without proving you can at least eat level 5. Steve said level 3 was almost unbearably hot and level 2 was comfortably hot. I took his word for it when I ordered my chicken katsu curry and it was a good thing because it was still pretty hot (I didn't even know the Japanese ate spicy food). The chicken katsu was perfectly crispy and tasty and the Japanese curry was unlike any curry I'd had before. I loved it! The sweet pickled vegetables on the table were tasty with the curry and served the dual purpose of cooling down the heat too.
Okaasan got me a K Card with ¥3,000 on it. The way train tickets worked is you bought a ticket for the station you were at to the station you were going to and the fare was dependent on how far the stations were from each other. The K Card was great because anytime I would ride on a Keihan train the fare was just subtracted from the amount on the card. It was a lot more convenient than buying individual tickets from one station to another and it's especially good for foreigners who don't know how to use the ticket machine. Towards the end of the trip I asked Steve why he didn't use K Cards and he said because no one else did. I got the feeling he'd been in Japan too long.
The card wasn't perfect though because it didn't work on JR Trains or the subway (both of which you'd probably use if you were in Osaka).
Satisfied with lunch we took the train from the Hirakatashi station to Nara to see the Toudaiji [Great Eastern Temple] (the largest wooden building in the world) and the Daibutsu [big Buddha] (the largest Buddha in Japan). (There wasn't a train directly to Nara from Hirakatashi so we had to change one or two different lines, but I didn't pay attention to how we got there.)
)
Nara was the first capital of Japan and is famous for its temple and deer. We even saw the deer in a park on our way to the Toudaiji. We also saw a couple of people selling yakiimo [roasted sweet potato] which Murray had told me to try if I got a chance. Since I had just eaten lunch I wasn't hungry so I figured I'd try one on the way back.
On our way to the Toudaiji we passed all sorts of stands selling omiyage [souvenirs that are supposed to be specific to the area that you bring back to people]. Omiyage aren't like crappy American souvenirs because they're their own level of crappy souvenir; instead of being mugs with the names of cities on it they're usually little food items or some really cheap stuff without the name of the place on it. There was one omiyage that I should have gotten; it was a handkerchief like thing with Hello Kitty dressed up in a deer costume with deer and a large golden Buddha in the background. It was expensive so I didn't get it, but it would have been cool because later in Kyoto there was another one just like it with Hello Kitty dressed up like a samurai. I couldn't think of anything more distinctly Japanese.
)
We entered the complex through the largest gate I had ever seen. Pictures don't do it justice because you can't begin to understand the actual scale of the place without standing in front of it. Amazingly Toudaiji was on an even larger scale which was all the more impressive because it was completely wood. We saw the big Buddha and I looked around for a pillar with a hole in it. Murray had told me about the pillar because he heard that crawling through it was supposed to bring something good (turns out that something good is actually nirvana). Eventually I spotted the pillar at the back of the temple and there were a couple of kids crawling through it. I told Steve what Murray had told me and Steve somehow managed to squeeze himself through the hole! Parents of the children who crawled through the hole looked at Steve funny when he crawled through the hole, but I swear a couple of them looked like they were considering trying it themselves. I made a half-hearted attempt to get through the hole, but I quickly realized my shoulders were too wide to get though.
)
)
)
)
)
)
We explored the rest of the complex and as we did storm clouds rolled in. It sprinkled lightly for a good length of time, but before we left it was raining pretty heavily. We left and I was disappointed to see that all the yakiimo vendors had already packed up.
)
)
)
)
)
We walked around the town a little bit. I found a shop selling sweets and got Lynn a couple of pieces of candy (one with a cherry blossom in it and another that I think was a ball of mochi [rice flour] stuffed with bean paste). Too bad Lynn was too wimpy to eat any of it.
We also went to a toy shop and looked at some expensive toys. I was surprised that while Japan outlaws guns they allow amazingly realistic toy guns to be sold. I didn't see anything I wanted to buy. Walking from the toy shop we passed a street vendor selling taiyaki [fish-shaped pancakes] and I got one custard filled and one red bean paste filled. The custard one tasted like any custard filled thing. The red bean paste tasted like refried beans, only sweet. The taiyaki wasn't bad, but not something I would go out of my way for.
We stopped at a Sega Joypolis, an arcade, and inside the place they had all sorts of signs with some chick on them. She was extremely cute and had big boobs. I was in love. Later I found out her name is Megumi and she's a famous bikini idol. All the video games took ¥100 coins, which made playing expensive. My problem was I ended digging Gundam DX, which could be played with up to four people. There was a cooperative mode and a versus mode, but naturally versus was more fun. Another game that looked fun was Taiko no Tatsujin. It had two taiko drums set up in front of the machine that you had to hit in time to music Dance Dance Revolution style. The machine was placed by the entrance because cute chicks usually played it making it entertaining without even having to play it. We ended up spending too much time and money in arcades my entire trip.
Japanese trains stop running at midnight, or earlier, so if you have to make a couple of connections to get home you have to account for your travel time and leave before any of the lines stop running. Steve figured out that we only had about 20 minutes before we had to leave if we wanted to get home. I was hungry, but we didn't have time to eat around Nara. I did have fun looking at the different restaurants with their window displays of plastic food though. Most of the restaurants were closed anyway, but there was a yakitori place open. Yakitori was on my list of Japanese food to try, but Steve told me it was expensive. Looking at the menu they had propped in front of their restaurant it was obvious that it was expensive.
If I couldn't eat at least I could snack. Steve told me that Mister Donut made the best donuts he had found in Japan so we stopped at one. I got a glazed donut, a pon de ring, and a glass of milk. We seated ourselves at a table. The seating area was filled with cigarette smoke so I was happy we weren't staying long. The glazed donut tasted like your average supermarket glazed donut and the pon de ring had a puffy plastic texture that was complimented by the burnt tire flavor. Steve may have liked the donuts at Mister Donut, but I thought they were terrible. Steve said I hadn't been in Japan [meaning away from good donuts] long enough to appreciate them. The milk was whole milk served on ice. I'm not a fan of whole milk, but I would've drunk anything to get the burnt tire taste out of my mouth.
We headed back home and exited at the Hirakatashi station. Steve knew of a ramen shop by the train station that he liked so that's where we stopped for dinner. We entered through a sliding door and seated ourselves at the counter. The restaurant was actually all counter with a small kitchen in the middle. We were greeted and given a jug of cold water. Steve looked at the menu, which was on a little card written in kanji in the top to bottom, right to left fashion. I couldn't make heads or tails of the menu so I was dependent on Steve's Japanese literacy. When Steve ordered kim chi and I got chicken wings the waitress asked him, "Is that all you want?". Neither of us understood what she meant by that, but it was obvious 10 minutes later that Steve ordered side dishes because we got a small bowl of kim chi and four chicken wings. Steve asked the waitress where the soup section was and she pointed it out on the other side of the menu. I ordered a miso ramen and ate a couple of the chicken wings while I waited for it. The wings were crispy and were in a slightly sweet sauce that was pretty tasty. When my large bowl of ramen arrived it smelled great. This wasn't like the stuff you get at the store 10 for a $1. The broth had a lot of flavor and there was a slice or two of fish cake, a few slices of pork, and some green onion in it. It was very tasty.
)
After we finished our meal we went home. Along the way we ran across a couple of vending machines selling chuhai, a low alcohol drink with flavors like lemon, grapefruit and pineapple. Apparently the chicks dig chuhai. Japan is famous for vending machines and there were plenty of vending machines with soda and canned coffee. Occasionally we found some that sold beer, chuhai, ice cream, and even found one the size of a bus that sold large bags of rice. The beer machines weren't very common, but Steve and I had a contest for who could find the biggest bottle of beer in a machine. I won when I found a machine that sold three liter bottles (that's almost a gallon!).
Steve wanted to go to Neyagawashi to pick up his paycheck from a teaching job. I kicked back in a small bookstore looking at Japanese porn while Steve took care of his business. Japanese porn is really hardcore despite the fact that they aren't allowed to show private parts. It must be really aggravating for Japanese men.
Afterwards we went to Book Off, a store that sold new and used books, cds, and dvds. We didn't really do much there besides look around because we didn't have much time before we had to meet Okaasan at the Gotenyama train station: she wanted to take us to Kyoto. Before we left Neyagawashi I stopped at a bakery in the train station to pick up something to tide me over until lunch. I love bakeries and Japanese bakeries were especially fun because I got a chance to use my katakana literacy skills to read the names of all the different items to figure out what they were. I picked up a tray and a set of tongs and had the tray full before long. I took the tray to the register where the cashier totaled my purchases and bagged them. The cashier wouldn't take money directly, but from a small tray where you were supposed to place it. Change was also placed on the tray.
I ate an okonomiyaki pon when we got to the Gotenyama station. Okonomiyaki is a pancake like thing that's covered with various ingredients (in Osaka it's strips of pork, brown sauce, mayonnaise, and dried bonito flakes) and the bun had them all. The dried bonito flakes tasted really fishy to me and there were a lot of them on the bun so I didn't like it. The best pastry of the bunch, and the trip, was one filled with ube [purple yam] and sprinkled with black sesame seeds. The pastry was light and flakey, and the filling was lightly sweet and nutty with only a little starchiness.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
We got off at the Gotenyama station, met Okaasan, and took the line the rest of the way to Kyoto. The first thing I noticed in Kyoto were the elegant weeping cherry trees in bloom. They seemed appropriate for Kyoto because Kyoto seemed very elegant. We waited at the bus stop what seemed like forever for a bus to arrive. The way the buses operated was that you entered through the back door and paid as you left through the front door. We took the bus to Kinkakuji [Temple of the Golden Pavilion]. The golden pavilion has to be the most photogenic spot in Japan with its beautiful golden temple and everyone (including myself) took pictures of it. We walked around the rest of the complex, but there wasn't much to say about it.
I had been looking for something to get Lynn and so far didn't have much luck. While waiting for the bus I spotted a souvenir shop across from the bus stop. There was a scroll that had a large fat cat painted on it in a minimalist Japanese style that I knew Lynn would appreciate. It was the only worthwhile souvenir I had seen so I got it for her.
)
Next we took the bus to Nijojou [Nijo Castle] to look at the sakura. We got into the castle and there were groves of cherry trees, but none of them were in bloom. They would probably bloom within a week. We walked around the castle courtyard, but the castle itself was closed. Nijojou was a bust and Okaasan felt bad about taking us there.
We took the bus back into Kyoto proper and it must have been rush hour because the bus was full when we got on. When I say full I mean that there wasn't any room for us in the bus so Steve and I had to squeeze into the spots right next to the back door. What's even crazier is when the bus stopped even more people shoved themselves in after us. People finally stopped trying to get on when bus passengers were being physically ejected from the bus when the back door opened.
We made it back to where we started in Kyoto and I was starving. We never ate lunch and it was past seven. We walked around looking for restaurants and nothing looked particularly good. We even saw an "American" restaurant that I think sold meatloaf and other American food I'm not fond of. There was a large, multistoried restaurant that had plastic food in their window that showed they specialized in shabu shabu and bento boxes. I saw one with unagi [freshwater eel] and what I thought was tai [red snapper] sashimi so we went in.
The bento box I wanted came with rice, unagi, cellophane noodles, sashimi, pickles, and some sort of soup. Unagi is a favorite of mine because its light flesh practically melts in your mouth and it's tasty with barbecue sauce. The unagi I had that night was the worst I'd ever had and that even included eating at all you can eat sushi places. The meat tasted like it was cooked earlier that day and the barbecue sauce on it tasted odd. I figured the sashimi would at least be good, but when I tasted it it didn't have much flavor. The texture made me think that it had been previously frozen. I knew it wasn't tai so I asked Okaasan what it was. She said it was koi. I didn't like the sashimi before, but now I was revolted because koi are one of the few animals I like (no fur, no claws, and no crap to clean). Now I knew how pet lovers would feel discovering they were eating dog or cat and I couldn't eat another piece. The soup tasted gingery, but I didn't care for it. It also had these weird peppermint things floating in it. The pickles had a unique flavor with a sharp bite. I didn't think there were bad the first time, but the second one I ate almost made me wretch because the flavor was too peculiar. Okaasan told me the pickles were narazuke, a pickle made in Nara that's cured in sake. I let her have the rest of my pickles. The cellophane noodles tasted pretty good. It had little round bits of something hard mixed in that Okaasan told me were koi roe. I thought it was weird, but it didn't taste bad.
It seemed that Japanese fast(er) food was more straight forward, without too much weird stuff, but when you got into more refined dining it opened the door for very crazy shit. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise considering the American fast food tends to be very basic while haute cuisine is when you start getting into weird food.
The dinner in Kyoto was the worst food of the entire trip. What made it worse is that Okaasan treated. I knew it was fairly expensive so I felt bad that she paid for it.
When we were finished with dinner we walked Gion to look for geisha. I thought it was pretty cool to see the area where "Memoirs of a Geisha" was based, but we didn't see any geisha or maiko (geisha in training).
Steve had to go to school all day, it was rainy, and I was a little depressed that Lynn wasn't in Japan with me so the only thing I did was read "Memoirs of a Geisha". I tried watching tv, but the host family's tv only received about three channels and they all sucked. The Japanese television I saw was amazingly food obsessed, which wasn't nearly as enjoyable as it should've been. For example there was a game show which had two teams answering questions. The twist was the tempura chef between them who would show an ingredient and then cook it up for the team that answered the next question correctly. The show was more about watching them eat something than playing the game. It was tedious. Japanese tv would have been better if there was some nudity like I had read about at some time or another. Maybe that's only in Tokyo?
Okaasan asked me if I was interested in going grocery shopping with her and that actually did sound like an experience to me. We drove to the supermarket, but we visited a couple of fishmongers first. It was interesting how some vendors would get bored and yell "Irasshaimase [the traditional greeting for customers used by shopkeepers]" in different ways. Okaasan showed me some deep red colored flesh that didn't look like any fish meat I'd ever seen. Okaasan said it was whale meat. It didn't look at all appetizing. After looking at the fish we went next door to the supermarket.
It was a typical supermarket with all sorts of different sections, but the food section was most interesting to me (I'm sure that's not news to anyone). There was a surprisingly large selection of ready made foods, like sushi rolls, and some items were even available to sample (like chicken heart yakitori). I moved on to the meat section and saw some amazingly marbled beef; if you tried to cut the fat from the meat the only thing you'd be left with is a pile of small bits of beef. I asked Okaasan if it was Kobe beef* and she told me it was some other beef that was famous in Japan (either Omi, Matsuzaka, or Mishima). I was tempted to buy some, but thought better of it since I had no idea how to cook it.
There was a frozen food section in the supermarket, but it was tiny and the only thing in it was frozen fish. I looked through the produce section looking for things I hadn't seen before. Okaasan pointed out some large, pointy plants. I didn't know what they were so she told me they were bamboo shoots. I'd never seen one whole before. I found the supermarket's chocolate section (the true measure of a society) and I got myself a decent selection of Japanese chocolate. Most of the chocolate was alright. The one thing I loved was the chocolate covered fried almonds, but it was because the almonds had a great flavor, not the chocolate. It was typical of what you hear about Japanese packaging because each almond was individually wrapped, which might explain why there were only about a dozen almonds per box.
On our way out I looked at the large appliances. One of the odd things about Japan is their combination washer/dryers (they wash clothes and dry them in the same machine). Steve told me they don't actually get anything dry, just kept them from being soaking wet so you still have to line dry your clothes (which considering the hot and wet or freezing cold weather didn't seem too practical).
Steve got home and Okaasan made okonomiyaki and yakisoba [pan fried noodles] on a hot plate that she put in the middle of the table. The yakisoba was very good, but the okonomiyaki was only ok. Steve warned me about that prior. Afterwards when we played dominoes it was obvious that Okaasan was really hooked on the game.
Kobe beef is famous inside of and outside of Japan and has recently become a term stolen by U.S. ranchers and restauranteurs. In Japan it describes Wagyu cows raised in the Hyogo prefecture that conform to local standards. The reason it's famous is because of its marbling and high price. Most people who eat it do say it's worth it and Steve was one of those people. I was definitely willing to pay the price once to try it.
Steve and I walked to the Hirakatashi station to have lunch at Tonkatsu Inaba, another one of Steve's favorite restaurants. The lunch started with a weak soup that was hardly worth eating. We got a combination plate which had tonkatsu, korokke, umeboshi [pickled plum] stuffed pork katsu, shrimp katsu, and shredded cabbage. The tonkatsu and korokke were great. Tempura shrimp are normally too bland for me so I was surprised that shrimp katsu had a decent flavor in addition to being very crispy. It's definitely the superior fried shrimp dish. The umeboshi was very sour, it's supposed to be, but the pork-umeboshi combination didn't really appeal to me. The shredded cabbage was pretty good with the vinaigrette they had on the table. There was only one thing I didn't care for so that wasn't bad.
On the way to the train station I saw a few machines that looked like gumball machines, but they dispensed little toys. One of the capsule machines had little Gundam toys. I got one hoping I'd get a Zaku II and I did. It was one of the orange ones though which didn't look nearly as cool as the green ones.
Every time we had to catch a train I was clueless. It wasn't that I didn't know how to catch a train, or which platform to stand on, but I never knew which train to catch. There were limited express, express, semi-express, sub express, and local trains, and I never knew which was which. Steve told me that you needed a special ticket for the limited express and it was the train with the least number of stops between Osaka and Kyoto. The express, semi-express, and sub express all had a different number of limited stops, but the semi-express only ran for a limited set of hours. Local trains hit every stop and they're the only way to get to a lot of the smaller stations.
We got off at the Neyagawashi station to go to the Book Off again. I checked out the photography books and noticed that the used books with naked women on the cover cost more than the books without naked women on the cover even if the contents of both were naked women. I bought a book, non-nude, with a cute Japanese chick with big boobs.
Book Off took up the first and second floors of a five story building so I was curious about what was on the other floors. The third floor was a hyaku en [¥100] store, the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store. It was good for snacks and what not.
The fourth and fifth floors were taken up by something called JJ Club 100. Steve wasn't interested in it, but I had a feeling that it was worth investigating. Steve asked someone behind the counter what it was and he said it was a 24 hour arcade that allowed unlimited game play at the rate of 100 yen for every 15 minutes. You had to buy a membership for 300 yen, but 400 yen an hour was significantly less than what I usually spent in 15 minutes! We had to fill out a membership application and that was interesting for me since the only part of the application I could read was "name".
We checked out the video games, but after I left Japan Steve checked out the rest of it and told me they also had billiards, computers with internet access, manga [comic books], and karaoke. They didn't have Gundam DX so we ended up playing Pocket Fighter (a Capcom fighting game with "super deformed" [small bodies with big heads] fighters) and some other versus games. Steve was supposed to meet his girlfriend in Kyoto, but she said she was sick so we ended up playing video games all night.
When we finally burnt out on video games we noticed that we were starving. We decided to look around the neighborhood for something to eat. Steve wanted to find a tabehoudai [all you can eat] yakiniku [Korean barbecue] place, and we found one, but they said they were running out of food. I wasn't sure what to make of that.
I love Korean barbecue and in all the times and all the places I'd eaten it I'd found the quality of the food to be very good. We stopped at some random yakiniku place called Yamaki. We were seated and given menus. The only thing we really looked at were the meat combination platters (complete with the total weight of the combination). There were some kanji describing the different meats that Steve didn't know so we were destined to get some mystery meat. We agreed on a meat platter and I had read the name in katakana, but it wasn't until Steve said "Voryuumu Setto" out loud that I realized it was called the Volume Set (volume meaning large quantity, like volume discount). Knowing that we got the combination that focused on quantity I was now worried about the quality of our food.
Our platter of meat arrived and our tabletop grill was fired up. We had about five different meats on the platter and the only one I knew was kalbi [short ribs]. We didn't get any rice or the usual side dishes. Everywhere else I'd had Korean they just came with dinner so it figured that in Japan you had to order them separately. One of meats didn't look like meat at all because it was white and fatty looking. It was dubious, but we both tried it anyway. It shriveled on the grill like fat, but there was some membrane on one side that kept it together. I took it off the grill quickly because I was worried that it would shrivel to nothing, but it was still nicely charred. The "meat" tasted like fat, but the membrane was super chewy. I couldn't make a dent in the membrane so I refused to swallow it. I enjoyed it though because the marinade was amazingly spicy and better than any Korean I'd ever had! I was surprised because I didn't expect the Japanese to eat anything spicy (that was my experience in America anyway), but in the few days I'd been in Japan I'd had two spicy dishes.
The white "meat" was actually the best thing on the platter, but practically everything was delicious. After we were finished Steve asked the waitress what we ate. One of meats was cheek and the white "meat" was small intestine. Knowing it was small intestine I'd still order it again because it was that good.
The waitress spoke some English and Steve told her that her English was good (what a line). He flirted with her and found out she actually attended the same school as him. Before we left he gave her his email address.
)
Anytime we walked to or from the Gotenyama station we had to walk uphill. I know that's an old joke, "When I was your age I had to walk 10 miles through the snow, uphill both ways," but I didn't know it was physically possible. Well, if there's a hill in between you and the destination then you'd have to walk uphill both ways and there was a hill between the host family's house and the Gotenyama station.
There was a nice park (Makino Park) full of cherry trees in bloom. The park was right next to the Katano Shrine (a shinto shrine) which I never got a chance to see. What amazed me is that even though it was mostly residential the entire route we still passed two or three different bakeries along the way. I love bakeries, but they're rare in Phoenix so I enjoyed being someplace they were in abundance. I tried a shuu kuriimu [cream puff] from the bakery just outside of the train station and it wasn't bad. Also along the way to the train station was a sign for a massage parlor with a picture of an attractive middle aged woman on it. I told Steve he should try it and he said the picture was probably ten years old.
I love sumo and would watch it when ESPN used to show the bashos (compressing 14 days of competition into less than 30 minutes of television). I had told Steve I wanted to attend a sumo match if possible and I was lucky enough that there was an exhibition sumo tournament (not a basho) going on while I was in Osaka. Okaasan and Otousan had never been to a sumo tournament before so they decided to join us.
We left the house for the Gotenyama station without getting anything to eat. Steve and I were starved. We took the train to Osaka and headed to Osakajou [Osaka Castle] Hall. When we got to our destination Steve and I picked up some snacks at a convenience store. Steve showed me a giant donut for ¥100 that he likes. I got one of those and mushroom shaped strawberry yogurt dipped pretzels. We were so hungry we started eating our donuts while we were still in the train station, which is a taboo in Japan. Okaasan mentioned to Steve that Japanese people wouldn't eat in the train station so Steve responded that it was a good thing we weren't Japanese. We both knew that the reason she mentioned it was because she was uncomfortable, but starving made us more uncomfortable.
We got to Osakajou and there were all sorts of food vendors set up around the castle. I wanted to look at and eat everything, but Okaasan and Otousan weren't stopping for anything. Once up by the castle I could look down and see all the blue tarps people had laid out underneath the cherry trees to enjoy viewing the sakura.
)
)
)
 he had playing.'))
)
)
)
)
We went into the hall and found our seats, which were located on a raised platform at ring level. Because the platform was raised we had to take our shoes off to get to our seats. I wondered why they gave us a large plastic bag and the answer was to put our shoes in while we were on the platform. The platform itself was divided into square sections which were each divided into four little squares, one per person, so the four of us had a whole square section to ourselves. There was a thin cushion with an old school Japanese print of a sumo wrestler on it in each square to keep the hard platform from being too uncomfortable. The cushion worked well for about 10 minutes, but I had to keep shifting around after that to keep my ass from getting sore.
Seats found Steve and I then looked for something more substantial than a large donut (which was tasty) to eat. I got an onigiri [rice ball] combination with three different triangle shaped onigiri: one with egg yolk, one with black sesame seeds, and one with umeboshi. The one with egg yolk had little bits of yolk sprinkled over the entire thing. It had a pleasant mild flavor and, surprisingly, was the best of the three. The one with black sesame seeds also had them sprinkled all over, but the sesame seeds didn't add as much flavor as I expected. The one with umeboshi had a fat dollop of purplish umeboshi right in the center and it was one of the sourest things I'd ever eaten in my life.
When we entered the hall we were given a couple of things including a schedule of the matches. Before the matches started all the lower ranked rikishi [sumo wrestlers] from the east (or west, I'm not sure who was first) came into the ring in their dress costumes, faced the crowd, and then faced each other. They left and the rikishi from the other side filed down to the ring and did the same thing. One of the things I love about sumo is the ceremony and I'd never seen the full ring opening ceremony before so I was elated.
The matches between the lower ranked guys were somewhat uneventful. In between the matches with the lower ranked guys and the higher ranked guys there was a demonstration of different sumo positions. It looked like the normal sumo stuff (squatting, lifting one leg up in the air, then the other), until they came to the end when they did the splits and touched their chins to the floor. I always knew sumo wrestlers where athletic, but I didn't know they were limber too. I guess it makes sense since they would probably get injured a lot more if they weren't.
)
Before the matches with the higher ranked rikishi all the higher ranked guys came out to do their ring opening ceremony. After they finished the special guest, Takanohana (the former yokozuna [the highest rank in sumo] of the east and my favorite rikishi) came out in full dress and did the yokozuna opening ceremony. It was the usual squatting and stomping type stuff. What surprised me about the ceremony was that when he lifted his leg people started making noise that ended in a crescendo of "wwwwwwhhhhhoooooooooooooAAAAAA" when he brought his leg down. Okaasan said that he was driving the evil spirits from the ring. This was a ceremony I didn't even know about and I liked it. Takanohana left and then Asashoryu (the current yokozuna of the east) came out and did the same thing to similar fanfare. There wasn't a yokozuna of the west so that was it.
Something else that surprised me about the matches was how noisy the people were. They would yell the names of the rikishi they liked sometimes followed by a message of encouragement. For instance when Takanohana (whose chosen name for wrestling means respectful flower in English) walked into the stadium, the entire place erupted with people yelling "Takanohana!". One guy even yelled something like "Takanohana, you're Japanese." (His comment may sound obvious, but it was a declaration of nationalism because the only current yokozuna, Asashoryu, was from Mongolia.) The shouting was great fun and I even got into it yelling "Kaio!", but it's unlikely I did it loud enough for anyone to hear.
Watching the matches was great. The rikishi higher ranked had developed their own styles so there were those who relied on their quickness to outmaneuver their opponent and push them out of the ring while others relied on sheer strength to relentlessly push their opponent out. I even saw one guy jump over a charging opponent, but he lost that match. One of the rikishi, who seemed to be setting himself up for stardom, had huge sideburns that made him look like a Japanese fat Elvis. He stood out in a crowd. He also had a unique wrestling style that was entertaining to watch; when he came out of his stance he would unleash a flurry of slaps to his opponent's chest E. Honda style (from Street Fighter 2). He won one or two matches, but he finally lost when his opponent wasn't fazed by the slapping and pushed him out of the ring. As we watched, and came to know some of their styles, I would look forward to those matches pitting a quick guy versus a strength guy. On that day strength prevailed probably because the quick guys didn't play their strategy to the end.
At the beginning of the tournament we filled out a contest sheet for who we thought who would win the tournament. I wasn't really familiar with the current rikishi, since ESPN stopped showing sumo, so I had to guess. I hedged my bet by voting for Kaio, an ozeki [the second highest rank in sumo]. Steve went for the obvious choice of Asashoryu (as a yokozuna Asashoryu is expected to win most tournaments). Okaasan also voted for an ozeki. Otousan picked a long shot, someone from about the fourth highest rank, because he said the guy had a good technique and a lot of heart. Asashoryu didn't make it very far even though he had a first round bye. Okaasan's, Otousan's, and my guy made it all the way to the semi-finals with Otousan's and my guy battling in the final. Otousan's guy was very good, but Kaio got him wrapped up and pushed him out. It was an exciting match. My guy won the tournament which qualified me for the contest. We waited after the tournament for them to announce the contest winners. The grand prize was a 19" plasma screen, and unlike the other prizes, I actually wanted it. Things were looking good (I was being positive) because I hadn't won any of the other prizes and when the announcer had a problem pronouncing a name that started with "ma" Okaasan got excited because she thought I had won it. It was actually someone else so I left without winning anything, but I did have my little sumo cushion.
All of us had a great time at the tournament and I thought the sumo tournament was the best experience of the entire trip. I'd highly recommend attending a match if you ever get a chance.
)
Osaka is Japan's third largest city so I was looking forward to exploring it. We left Osakajou Hall and parted ways with Okaasan and Otousan. I stopped at one of the food stalls and got a croquette. It was greasy, tasteless, and completely terrible. We walked down from the castle to the park by its base where there were all sorts of different bands playing. The lead singer of one of the bands kept yelling "Sumimasen!" [excuse me]. They sounded good, but they kept repeating the same thing every two minutes. I asked Steve if he understood the lyrics and he said the only thing he understood was, "If the music is too loud, excuse me".
We went to the JR train station to go somewhere (I didn't know where we were going), but the trains weren't running for some reason. We took a Keihan train to Umeda instead.
The subway station in Umeda seems to take up an entire city block, but it was difficult to tell because everything was underground. We exited the station and went to Yodobashi Camera where they sell quite a bit more than cameras. We headed to the fifth floor, where they sell toys. When we got into the elevator there was a guy wearing a dress uniform and white gloves who asked us "Nan kai?" ["What floor?"]. He pushed the fifth floor button for us and I wondered how you get a job as an elevator attendant.
We looked at the toys and the only thing that looked interesting to me was a Gundam Z action figure. It was a green Zaku with all sorts of weapons and many points of articulation. It was too cool for me not to buy it. We then looked at the suitcases (which is the real reason Steve wanted to stop there). Steve didn't find any luggage he liked`so we went to dinner.
Mensa Pontebekkio was an Italian restaurant located on the fourth floor of some department store. I asked Steve how he found out about the place and he said his girlfriend told him about it. They went there once and really liked it.
Mensa Pontebekkio was a very trendy restaurant with a prix fixe menu. The menu was a real challenge for both of us because of the Italian written in Japanese; I wasn't great at reading katakana, so if I translated a word that didn't sound right I didn't know if it was because I mistranslated it, or if it was an Italian word I'd never heard before. We must have spent about 20 minutes reading through all of the dishes to decide what we wanted. I was mildly amused that we were given bottled water like a real European restaurant even though Japan has great water. I also got a glass of French Riesling that was excellent.
My appetizer was pasta with a pesto sauce that was topped with a raw egg. The pasta was great, but the egg didn't add anything to it. My entree was thinly sliced lamb that was very good. For dessert I had fresh fruit in syrup. It was as plain as it sounds. I thought they might have been interesting fruits, but they weren't. Expresso came at the end of the meal whether you wanted it or not, so even though I don't like coffee I gave it a try. It just tasted like burnt, bitter nastiness to me, but Steve liked it.
As we left the restaurant everyone we saw from the wait staff to the kitchen staff thanked us. That was common in Japanese restaurants and I dug it. There are plenty of American restaurants that do the same thing, but for some reason it seemed more sincere in Japan.
Steve met up with his friend Roy so we could all go to the Osaka Aquarium. Before we left for Osaka we stopped at CoCo Ichi for lunch. I loved their curry, but I didn't want to eat it again so soon. I got a curry nan [Indian bread] and a salad. The curry nan was topped with cheese, which sounded weird, but it tasted great. I really loved the bread, but it wasn't nearly filling enough and too expensive to buy two of them. The salad was small with iceberg lettuce and corn, but I only paid like a dollar for it anyway. I found it interesting that Japanese salad dressing never tasted anything like what people call "Japanese" salad dressing in the U.S..
While we were eating Steve flirted with our waitress. Roy and I looked at Steve like he was smoking crack because the waitress was not cute. After the waitress' shift was over she changed out of her uniform and she looked pretty damn good with her hair down. Steve said he knew it all along, but I think the truth is that he can't control his waitress fetish.
We went to Osaka and Roy and I thought Steve had really been in Japan too long when he almost broke his ankle running down the stairs for the subway train. We didn't have to be anywhere and the trains come like every 10 minutes so there wasn't any reason to run for it. When I asked Steve why he did it he said because everyone else was. Yep, he'd definitely been in Japan too long.
One of the advantages to taking trains around rush hour was all the professional women in skirt suits and black stockings. I've always liked the skirt suit look and Japanese women pull it off very well. They also had better butts than I expected too.
Steve didn't want to carry his backpack to and from the aquarium so he put it in a locker. Later when we got back from the aquarium he couldn't remember where the locker was located. He was lucky I was able to find it eventually. Let that be a lesson to you.
The entire trip I hadn't found any good tourist stuff to buy, but outside of the station by the aquarium I found someone selling the type of stuff American tourists would buy. Of course it was all made in China. I bought my mom and Lynn little paper dolls in kimonos there because I knew they wouldn't care if they were made in China.
We went into the Osaka Aquarium, and well, it was an aquarium. One cool thing was that they had dolphins. The dolphin aquarium was actually visible from several levels of the aquarium so you could see them above and below the water. Another cool thing they had was a sunfish, which was large and very awkward looking. Its dorsal and pelvic fins were large and fleshy and it swam by waving them around. It didn't seem possible that such a lumbering fish could live in the ocean without starving to death. The coolest thing in the aquarium were the giant crabs from the bottom of the Japan Sea. They looked alien with their long slender arms and legs. Their arms extended out only to fold back in on themselves so even though their arms were like five feet long their pincers were only four inches away from their mouths.
When we finished with the aquarium I thought it was just alright.
I had noticed a Cafe du Monde in the building next to the aquarium and wanted to try their beignets to see if they were the same as the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. Who would have expected to find a Cafe du Monde in Japan? I also wanted something sweet. When we walked in it looked just like the one in New Orleans, only clean. I got an order of beignets and a raspberry milk. The drink looked like the bottom half of the glass was filled with raspberry syrup with the remainder being milk. It was very sweet, but not bad. The beignets were exactly like they are in New Orleans (hot, crispy, doughy, and sweet), but there were only two beignets to an order instead of three. It was nice to get something sweet for a change.
We were going to go to Spaworld (Steve and Roy's favorite place in Osaka), but we didn't for some reason or another. Roy went back home while Steve and I went to dinner at a soba place right by Tonkatsu Inaba. I wanted to get soba tenzaru with tempura shrimp, but when it came out it was tempura shrimp in soup with soba. Both the soup and the soba were pretty good. The tempura would have been great if it wasn't placed in boiling hot soup. I could never understand the thinking behind taking something crispy, like tempura, and putting it into soup to get soggy. It would be just as bad as putting sashimi into soup.
There was an arcade by the train station that only charged ¥50 for their video games and they had the Gundam DX game. I liked that price a lot better than Sega Joypolis even if they didn't have pictures of Megumi.
For some reason we got a late start on the day. We headed into Osaka to try to find something to do. While walking around the underground mall/train station I saw an ice cream place. I was starving and ice cream sounded good. I wanted to get something uniquely Japanese so I got a monaka [wafer cake] stuffed with azuki [sweet red bean] ice cream. It was actually pretty tasty.
I was looking for a French restaurant to eat dinner at until Steve remembered that I hadn't tried any Kobe beef yet. I was glad he remembered because I would have kicked myself if I went to Japan and didn't try Kobe beef. First we found a phone booth and tried to look up a Kobe beef restaurant in the phonebook. We couldn't find one, but even if we did we wouldn't be able to find it anyway: the address system in Japan is complicated because instead of using street addresses they zoom in on a specific area until they get to a building number for that particular block, which is impossible without a map in a strange place. We then walked around looking for a restaurant that had Kobe beef on their menu. We couldn't find one so Steve asked someone at a convenience store. He said there was one around, but was vague about where it was.
Eventually we found one. It was a trendy restaurant with cool square red leather chairs that didn't look comfortable. I looked at the menu and there were so many interesting things on it that I completely over-ordered. We started with an order of tempura fish and Steve got a bowl of cream soup with homemade bacon. The tempura was soggy and greasy. It made me worry that this wasn't a good restaurant. I tried some of Steve's soup and wasn't impressed with its thin broth, but it was tasty none the less. It made me once again hopeful that we'd have a great meal.
Next was the eggplant gratin, thinly sliced eggplant with Japanese curry, cheese, and crab meat. Once again the combination of Japanese curry and cheese was great. The only thing I didn't like about it was the crab because it tasted odd. The crab was easy to avoid though. We also had a pizza with salami and fresh arugula. Steve had complained about how bad Japanese pizza was so I was really curious about it. The pizza had an Italian style thin crust and the toppings were excellent. The salami was sliced thick and of very high quality. The pepperiness from the fresh arugula made for a great combination with everything else. Maybe Steve didn't like Japanese pizza, but the one we had was one of the best pizzas I'd had.
My entree was Kobe beef with grilled vegetables. The steak was seared and served presliced which made it easy to eat with chopsticks. I had heard so much good stuff about Kobe beef that it didn't seem possible that it would live up to my expectations. Amazingly enough it did. The beef was amazingly tender and it melted in my mouth with a flavor like beef flavored butter. The grilled vegetables were white asparagus and somehow they had a beefy flavor too. It was an excellent entree and well worth the money. I'd definitely eat Kobe beef again.
After dinner Steve asked the restaurant host if he knew where to find some chicks. The exchange was in English and I knew as soon as the question came out of Steve's mouth that the host misunderstood what Steve asked for. He asked if we were looking for women to buy. Steve clarified that we were just looking for eye candy. The host told us we'd find a lot of chicks by some bridge and gave us directions. He said it was by a sign of a guy holding his arms up and he even drew a little picture of the guy on a napkin. That was cool of him.
We followed the directions and ran into the largest entertainment district in Osaka. It was new to Steve and I couldn't believe he didn't know about the place. We found the bridge and the sign the host told us about. It turns out the sign is an advertisement for Glico that's an Osaka icon since it was first built in 1935. We did some girl watching and I also watched a couple of "club" hosts with their chicks trying to entice salarymen to visit their club.
As fun as girl watching was it still got old. We wanted to get some karaoke on, but Steve and I didn't want to karaoke only with each other. Steve wrote a quick little sign and we tried get some chicks to karaoke with us, but that didn't work so well. Instead we found a Sega Joypolis and played the taiko game! Steve totally kicked my ass, but I think it was mostly due to the fact that I couldn't get the game to register when I hit the drum on the edge.
After we wasted enough money at the arcade we walked around some more. We turned down a street where there were all sorts of adult services. By this time we had walked through enough Japanese red light districts to get used to them ignoring us. It always kind of offended me, but it wasn't like I was looking to make use of the services anyway. As we walked down the street some cute Chinese girl started talking to us. I was amazed someone noticed we existed! She must have been new. She tried to get us into the hostess bar she worked at, but I think paying girls to drink with you is a concept that may only appeal to Japanese men. After that we were propositioned by a couple of club hosts. I soon figured out that I preferred being ignored. To our amusement we saw a cluster of professional women escort some salaryman out of their establishment to send him off. He must have been a very important customer to warrant such a departure.
)
There wasn't much to do on my last day in Japan besides go to the airport. I didn't even have time for lunch. I walked around the neighborhood one last time before I had to leave. The sakura had fallen off the cherry trees in such abundance that they covered the ground like snow. It was like a beautiful Japanese fantasy. I was amazed that I had arrived in Osaka at the start of hanami and it was already ending before I left.
Okaasan dropped me off at the Gotenyama train station, which was also the Kansai limo bus pick up. Even though the price was comparable to taking the trains the limo bus was a comfortable ride straight to Kansai International Airport. It was great not to have to navigate the train system or carry my luggage around myself. I'd highly recommend the limo bus.
Kansai International is one long building and it was actually pretty cool looking. I especially liked the giant mobiles hanging from the ceiling.
I still had some Japanese currency that really wasn't enough for me to bother changing so I looked for some stuff at the airport to spend it on. I ended up getting some shumai [Chinese steamed pork dumplings] from a small snack bar. They were terrible! I don't know what they did to them, but the flavor was foul. Something odd about the shumai, besides the flavor, was that there was a soy bean shoved into the center. It didn't add anything to it. With the rest of my money I bought a nudey magazine. I tried to resist, but one of the airport gift shops actually had a good one and it only left me with about ¥2.
It was an interesting trip, but I was disappointed that there wasn't more to Osaka. Ultimately I thought Osaka was the Japanese version of New Jersey; it was big with lots of people, but there was nothing to see. If I go back to Japan I'd have to check out Tokyo or spend more time in Kyoto. I'd also learn katakana better since I'm more likely to understand anything written in katakana (since it's usually used for foreign words) and try to learn some food kanji so I could actually understand Japanese menus.
I decided I would live in Japan for a year, and enrolled in an elementary Japanese class at Mesa Community College. While in class I met two people who ended up having quite an impact on my life. The first was Lynn, who I eventually married, and the second was Steve, who's one of my best friends. When Lynn and I got serious I knew I couldn't bring myself to move to Japan for a year, but Steve ended up going there and doing what I wished I could. (You can read about Steve's Osaka experience here.) I asked him if his host family would be willing to let me stay with them for a week or two and they said yes. Thanks to Steve and his host family I was able to afford a visit.
I knew this might be my only visit to Japan so I wanted to experience it during one of its unique periods, hanami [cherry blossom viewing season]. During springtime Japan explodes with sakura [cherry blossoms] and I since I don't live in Washington D.C. it was unlikely I would ever see something like that. Hanami is also very short lived, only lasting about two weeks so I hoped the hanami forecasts were accurate.