Osaka, Japan's second city

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After a real busy 2 weeks we came to Osaka to do pretty much nothing, just lounge about and catch up on some further trip planning, we go to Korea and China in the next fortnight and don't have a scooby as to where we're going.

Osaka is a big city, nowhere near as big as Tokyo but far bigger than anything else that Japan has to offer. It's a port city and home to the biggest selection of fish in the whole country. I think the place was a real indication of 'working class' Japan, there's no special attention for foriengers here, this was real life, and a totally different expereince of Japan.

After spending a lot of Yen in Hiroshima we needed to have a cheap couple of days here, no temples, no major excursions and very basic accomodation was the order of the day, and boy did we get it.

We booked in to a really cheap 'Business Hotel' in the middle of, what we diodn't know before we arrived, was a real dodgy area of Osaka. Now when I say real dodgy it's not like Wester Hailes or Lochee where you're just waiting to get jumped from a group of hooded top wearing, glue sniffing 14 year-olds, more like Easter Road or the Hilltown where as long as you keep your wits about you and dodge the drunks and you'll be fine.

There were so many homeless people, this was something that we hadn't experienced in Japan, and it was stinking, like raw sewage, and mixed in with the raw fish it left quite an impression, not one we'd like to repeat mind you.

Anyway the hotel was nice, basic but clean, it has a bizarre set up with the bathroom though. There was only one bathroom, there were other toilets scattered about, so it was only open and certain times for each sex. Females from 7am - 8am & 10pm - 11pm, while it was available to me from 8am - 12 noon and 3pm - 10pm, not exactly fair but as there were only two sheilas in the place maybe that was par for the course.

The showers were traditional Japanese, no privacy, just a wall of four showers around waist height with a wee stool to sit on. They sit down while they shower here then after they're clean they all jump in to this big communal bath, not my idea of a great evening but when in Rome and that.........

So the hotel was OK in a dodgy area but we made the most of it, they had a huge selection of videos, pirate ones on blank tapes written in Japanese, so we got the reception dude to choose us a few and we stayed in both nights watching, Anger Management, Chicago, Matchstick Men and some war one that we'd never heard of with Denzil Washington (does he do any other genre?) They were in English with Japanese subtitles so it was a cheap way to spend a couple of evenings.

We did visit the Nation Park and the Zoo while we were there as it was dead cheap, it was nice but I wish we hadn't botherd though as we both got eaten alive by these mental mosquitioes, we both got 10 bites on both our legs so we weren't happy campers for a couple of days. We found a chemist and, somehow that I can't quite fathom, managed to get some antihistamines and insect spray for them, it'll all come out in the wash, alledgedley.

So next stop Nara, the first Capital of Japan and another place with huge historic significance, should be a hoot, but before then...

C'mon babe, why don't we paint the town?

And all that jazz

I'm gonna rouge my knees, and roll my stockings down.

And all that jazz

Start the car, I know a whoopee spot
Where the gin is cold but the piana's hot

It's just a noisy hall where there's a nightly brawl

And all,

that,

jazz!

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