Osaka Episode 3 – Revenge of the Otaku

So I told you all about Friday but that isn’t the complete story. For the first time in a while I had an entire weekend free, I know incredible or what. So what to do with all this unusual free time. Well my initial Idea had been to sleep. God knows I needed it after the mental and physical battering I’d received. Sadly it was not to be.

Late Friday night I’d received a message from Yuko saying she was meeting some old friends in Osaka to head out to an ‘Izakaya’ (read gastro-pub) and some bars, and would I be interested in joining them. Hells yizzle I would. “Doko desu ka to nan-ji kara”, essentially when and where. Obviously I don’t know Osaka so the location of said pub was of little use. I got in touch with one of the other Frisbee people, Graham, and arranged to meet at the Hankyu station.

 

So off to Osaka once more, I do like that city and there is still plenty I haven’t seen, plus I hoped I could squeeze in some more Frisbee on the Sunday. Anyway I set off just after lunch to go get a train from Aioi. The trip to Himeji was uneventful, however at Himeji disaster struck. For some reason, not sure what as I could not understand the PA systems message, all of the rapid express trains for the next hour and a half were cancelled. Nightmare.

So I was stuck in the boiling hot station, it was about 28⁰ , as the number of people began to grow the train was going to be rammed so I could forsee a rather uncomfortable journey ahead. I went to one of the food stores downstairs and picked up an Imagawayaki. This is a kind of Japanese cake made on a griddle. Batter is first half cooked then some anko is scooped onto the centre then the whole thing is flipped to completely enclose the anko and cooked further. It tastes a bit like a waffle and the filling is suitably gooey.

Anyway finally It was time to leave and after about an hour in a sweaty train I was in Osaka. My first priority was to head towards the hostel Yuko had recommended I stay in for the night. It seemed like  straightforward walk and wouldn’t take too long.

Sadly I ran into a shop called Sofmap in a depato that was on the way. Dammit but this added an extra hour to my walk. This place is one of the major electronics chains in Japan and was stuffed full of computing, media and gaming gear. It also had a healthy selection of manga and anime to browse. Ahh Otaku heaven. Since my headphones had broken (sorry dad they just stopped working) and the ones I had purchased at a 100yen shop where rubbish I thought I’d better get some new ones. I settled on a pair of Sony phones that claimed to have a deep bass sound. Perfect for my needs and only 1400 yen (about 11 quid).

Ok so I could of spent much longer in here but I needed to get a move on. New phones installed I bopped down the road to some awesome dub mixes ‘d found on the mad decent podcast, got to love the bass. It wasn’t to far to the hostel but I dawdled a bit. This was an area of Osaka I’d not been to before and the architecture was really cool, and very unusual. Plus the weather was good and I still had an hour or two before I was meeting Graham, so no rush.

 

At this point the weather was really heating up. I went to a nearby conbini, they really are everywhere, ‘benri ne’? I could of used a drink but I kinda wanted something colder. To the frozen treats section I went. Sadly nearly everything was icecream based, including the rather bizarre Jun Cheese ice cream. Yup cheese not cheesecake. I settled on a rather tasty lemon sorbet thing and was again on my way.

So it turned out my hostel was in Fukushima haha. Not that Fukushima of course and I really shouldn’t laugh. Anyway it was called J hoppers and amazingly well situated I must admit.  It was on a very trendy road full of little bars and resteraunts and right next to a convenience store. The staff were also really nice and it turns out the hostel was set up to allow Japanese and internationals to meet and share their stories. I like the sound of that, in fact I was told they were having an international night tonight. Sadly I had to be on my way. Maybe next time, they have a few hostels around the region including one in Hiroshima and there is a reward system for frequent visitors. Like Arnie I would be back.

So next it was time to meet Graham and co. The meeting place was a giant TV screen called Big Man in Umeda Hankyu station. The reason for the name, basically it was written on the screen, who knows why but it’s a very famous meeting place in Osaka nonetheless. I had to dash as I'd wasted far more time in Sofmap than intended and cut it very fine, I’m so glad I have a mobile phone now.

So I met Graham and two Japanese ladies called Yumi and Ena. I introduced myself in Japanese, an error as they then reeled off a load more and I had no idea what they were saying. Anyway Ena was holding an Aldi bag, which made me laugh a lot. I had to quickly explain myself. Turned out that she had been all over the world. In fact all of Yuko’s friends had done a lot of travelling absolutely putting me to shame.

The final member of our group, Sushi (I’m 99% positive this is a nickname) joined us, I’m still a little confused as to whether he’s Japanese, American or French, either way he seemed very confused on his origins and had also lived everywhere. We went just down the road to Chaya machi the trendy area of Osaka to find the Izakaya.

We went up to the 5^th floor of one of the many tower blocks in the area. It was absolutely chocker with restaurants of all different kinds. The pub we were off to was basically took up the entire top floor. It was rammed. Before entering you had to take your shoes off, another point of amusement for my hosts as I struggled to get my massive shoes into one of the shoe lockers. I’m still unsure of the conversion to Japanese sizes so I just said ‘ookii’ when asked how big they were.

We had a booth reserved and at first it looked like it was proper Japanese style with a really low table and pillows to sit on. Sadly no, the table actually hid a rather large pit where you could stretch your legs out western style. Obviously came the horrible question of ‘so what do you like to eat?’ God I hate that question. I told them I wasn’t fussed so long as t didn’t contain “gyuuniku” (beef) or “ebi” (Shrimp) as I was allergic. They seemed cool with that and promised to warn me if anything would be dodgy.

So in came the food and you know what for once I wasn’t nervous. Everything is just so unusual to me and I think my curious nature gets the better of my anxiety. I tried a bit of everything that I could. There was a close call with a cheese stuffed surimi but I managed to stop in time. One interesting item was “Fukahire”. They kind of looked like crisps but Yumi informed me it was shark fin. A controversial item I know but not that bad. I don’t think I’d make a habit of buying it as the taste doesn’t outweigh the ethical hang-ups.

Yuko arrived a bit later with another friend, Maki and the get together was in full swing. The flow of food and conversation was constant. I managed to throw out a few Japanese phrases here and there, much to everyone’s amusement. My vocabulary isn’t great but I like to think I understand enough of what people say to not be fully left out of conversations.

Anyway everyone was so well traveled that their English was excellent. The only real problem was my accent, which is very toned down now. I decided to see which accents they preferred and threw out a few of my better imitations, which drew a few laughs, I think they liked Scottish best. I was then informed, by Sushi, that I wasn’t like most ex-pats in Japan, who are apparently either teaching English, looking to pick up Japanese girls or had nothing better to do. I think that was a compliment I’m not sure but it’s always good to be unique.

Anyway back to the food. “Tsugi wa” (next was) some rather nice flat fish, simply but well cooked and also teriyaki octopus. I informed Yumi of my love for octopus “tako ga daisuke desu” prompting more laughing. I really can’t get enough of the stuff though. Next up was fried chicken cartilage. I know a bit of a weird one, not mega tasty but a really nice crunch. This prompted a fun discussion about the pronunciation of cartilage, and its similarity to cartridge with a Japanese accent.

Ok back to the food, I wasn’t lying about the constant stream. We had some rather nice spring onion and squid pancakes, a selection of yakitori (grilled Chicken skewers) some Korean style pork, read spicy, and then a skewer selection. I have no idea what they all where but we played rock paper scissors to decide who ate what. I ended up with a fu one, which is apparently like tofu but made from wheat not soy.

That's about it for the dishes I can remember, there where more including desserts but they were boring and I couldn’t eat them anyway. Last amusing thing was a cocktail named “Pichi pichi pichu”. Apparently Pichi pichi is Japanese slang for a women’s soft skin and “pichu” means peach shockingly. It’s so nice talking to natives my age actually since I can pick up the language as it should be spoken. I need to start extending my slang vocabulary.

So as I said Yuko’s friends had been everywhere, all over the Americas, Europe and Asia. I told them about my trips to Africa and they where impressed however, apparently most Japanese people just don’t go there. Southern Europe, France, Greece, Spain and Italy seemed to be a firm favorite destination. I can understand Greece actually I think the food tastes are similar.

Back to food I had a quick discussion about the lack of lamb anywhere. It would appear that it just isn't suited to the Japanese cooking style, Ena said most people in Japan really don’t like the smell. It was explained to me that beef was the predominant red meat in Kansai, the most famous of course being Kobe, whereas in Tokyo it was mainly pork. Something to bare in mind when I purchase kare raisu I think.

Food all finished up we moved onto some bars. The first place was Hub, the british Pub. I was not impressed. I hadn’t travelled 5000 miles to go to a ‘local’. It was pretty horrendous and blissfully too popular, we couldn't get in. So we moved on to a more Japanese style bar. This time the table was about 2 feet from the floor.

This was a lot of fun actually. Amazingly just as we arrived a game of bingo started up. Unreal right. This was a far cry from the super speed bingo of Granny hall fame in the Uk. The guy calling out the numbers was an absolute laugh and was loving the fact he had foreigners in the audience. He claimed he’d help us out and kept going on about me looking like Charles Dickens or something, maybe lost in translation.  None of us won sadly “nai” but it was a good giggle and a nice way to end the night.

So after a “Mata aimashou” lets meet again I headed back to the hostel. I picked up some sugar-coated anko on the way to make up for the lack of pudding. It had gone twelve when I got there so most people were in bed in my room. I tucked in for the night as quietly as possible. The big downside of rooms in Japan is the thin walls. At four in the morning a gaggle of Aussies blundered their way to their rooms blind drunk. And they wouldn’t shut up. After about ten minutes of ruckus I’d had enough and went outside to tell them to shut up since no one else was going to.

A few hours kip and I was up at eight, I think my sleeping pattern still isn’t quite right, thank you beamtime. I had a chat with some old Japanese dude who was sharing the room. He was off to a rock concert in Osaka. He asked where I was from, “ah the Beatles” (eye roll), what I was doing in Japan, the usual stuff. I think he was off to help out in Fukushima and was just stopping off for some music, fair enough really. I did however learn a new phrase from him “ii tabi o” kinda like happy trails or bon voyage.

So I wanted to play some friz but that wasn’t till 2 so I had to find some things to do. I grabbed some breakfast and then had a quick chat with the lady at reception. She recommended I go check out the sky garden, a twin skyscraper and the biggest building in Osaka, apparently the views were amazing and it was only a fifteen-minute walk away. Sounded good to me.

Oh but I had forgotten one thing. It was the rainy season, you think we know rain in Britain, hell no we don’t. So the sun was out when I left but within five minutes it began to rain, and rain and rain. “Watashi wa nuremashita” (I got wet). It literally got so heavy I couldn’t continue and I had to take shelter in a local conbini. I was drenched from head to toe “tanoshikunai” (not fun).

The stop did however mean I bumped into a guy from Leiscter. He had been living in Osaka for two months but had been travelling the world for the past four. He had moved out here with his Canadian girlfriend whom he’d met in Australia. Confusing ey. I we had a nice little chat comparing our initial experiences of Japan, talking about places to visit and so on. The rain eased up after about 15 minutes and we went our separate ways. I do love random encounter like that though.

So nearly an hour after I’d set out on my 15 minute walk I arrived at the sky gardens. It really was flipping huge. At it’s base was a rather nice, albeit at the moment sodden, garden at the bottom. A feature of particular interest was the upwards waterfall, I think it needs no more explanation than that. The foot of the building was also quite cool. There were loads of restaurants in an area made up to look like a street in 1940’s Japan.

I moved onto the lift and rode it up to the 39^th floor I think. The lift itself was transparent and ran up the middle of the two tower blocks. The views were pretty cool though the rain did diminish it somewhat. From the 39^th floor you then take an escalator to the 40^th floor. From here there was a nice viewing gallery to get a good look across Osaka, both the city and the nearby river. It was stunning. I didn’t go onto the terrace sadly it was 700 yen and I didn’t feel like paying to get wet.

Sadly Frisbee was cancelled due to poor weather, what happened to if it ain’t raining it ain’t training, so I needed to figure out something to do. I started making my way back to Umeda station as Yuko had mentioned she needed to head there and maybe we could meet up.

It got to about lunchtime so I stopped at yet another conbni. I’d picked up some yakitori and Korean ramen on the cheap on the way. “Itadakimasu”. The Korean recommended was just a pot noodle really but the noodles are better quality and it was nicely spicy in the wet weather. All conbini’s seem to have kettles and an area to eat which is awesome.

I moved on to Umeda and decided to explore one of the massive department stores, the rain was still pretty rubbish so staying indoors seemed a good bet. I checked out the 10^th floor, which had a load of sports gear, for a Yoga mat. Sadly they were all a bit too pricey, I’ll find one eventually. Checking out the store directory I noticed the 13^th floor contained the “Pokémon centre Osaka”. I was intrigued and so rode the escalators upwards.

Wow this place was a bit of a shock. It was rammed, I mean everywhere in Osaka is rammed but I could barely move in here. There was a central area with loads of Pokémon toys, clothing accessories and other similar things that was overflowing with kid’s and their parents trying to grab the latest swag. Nearby was an area where tournaments were being held, both the trading card game and the console version. What struck me was the number of people wandering around on their Nintendo DS’s. Not just Kid’s but adults, in fact in some cases whole families were playing Pokémon together.

It would seem Pokemania is still alive and well here in Japan.  I was struck by a wave of nostalgia and I was sorely tempted to buy a copy and a Japanese DS right there and then to join in. Fortunately I channeled Nan at that moment and my inner cheapskate got the better of me. Maybe when I can read Japanese a bit better. Next door to the Pokemon centre was the ABC cooking studio where you pay to go in and well cook. Mad. It also seemed like a popular attraction.

So I’d killed about an hour and a half in a shop, mental, time to move on I thought. Yuko had unfortunately been dragged into work to help out with a class so I was still on my own. I checked out my travel guide and read about a shopping complex called Hep5. It was apparently where the trendy Japanese youth hung out. I’d not been exposed to any really crazy Japanese fashion yet so I figured it might be a nice place to do some people watching. Plus it had a ferris wheel on top so might be worth a giggle.

 

Hep5 was a big red building with about 8 floors. The Entrance has a massive whale statue hanging from the ceiling. The significance I’m not sure of but it looked pretty cool. Looking round most of the shops seemed to be squarely focused on the fairer sex, however the 7^th and 8^th floor were labeled as “Sega Joyopolis”. If that isn’t an enticing name for a video game geek I don't know what is.

I ascended the many escalators to joyopolis and was set adrift in a sea of ufo catchers. These are another massive craze in japan and are a far cry from the naff ones you get in New Brighton brightland arcade. They have everything. From the normal teddies and sweets. To pillows, bags and even useful electronics. One that I walked past had a subwoofer. Totally crazy. I changed a 1000 yen note into coins and had a go on a few. Well you’ve got to really. I also found an arcade machine called “The ocean hunter”. I used to sink many a pound into this thing when I was younger and so I sat down for a bit of a reminiscent play. It’s still solid.

I moved on and then disaster struck. Feeling around in my pockets I’d lost my wallet. Bad times. I walked up to the nearest help desk and said “Sumimasen. Watashi no seifu o sagashitte iru. Wasuremon desu.” Excuse me I’m lucking for my wallet, I’ve lost it. Thank god I’d commited that one to memory. I informed the lady that it was Kuroi (black) and had an Id card with my name in it. After a tense ten minutes an attendant holding my wallet, “Uwa Honto ni arigato gozaimashita” truly thank you very much. My heartbeat went back to normal.

I then went onto the top floor where there were a load of immersion games. They are basically like the simulators you sometimes see at summer fairs but there were a large variety, ranging from a jungle adventure shooting one, a hang glider simulator to the more bizarre cocktail bar simulator. I moved on to a large array of pachinko machines. These are a Japanese obsession. They are basically like one armed bandit slot machines except instead of the “one arm” little ball bearings are fired from the top and roll down toward an opening at the bottom of the machine, if they fall into the opening the slots start to turn. I had a go on a Neon genesis Evangelion one, didn’t win anything though but the lights were pretty.

Time was getting on sadly so I had to say goodbye to Hepfive, I’d totally forgotten to go on the Ferris wheel as well. I met up with Yuko and we wandered the shops for a while before I went to the station. She also gave me the “manju” (Japanese cakes) that she’d bought me from Tokyo. These things looked amazing, far too pretty too eat. Sadly they looked much better than they tasted, a bit bland to be honest

I decided to leave a bit earlier this time, I was determined not to miss the bus this time, and I didn’t hurray. I ended what had been a fun weekend with a lovely squid (yeah you heard me) Kare raisu. I’d also picked up some rather tasty sweet ginger Senbei (rice cakes) as well as something called mereokaki. Not sure what they were but they tasted a bit like shredded wheat.

Ja Mata mina-san