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Published: September 22nd 2008
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If you live in Kansai, there's no excuse not to visit Osaka. Saying that, it took me 3 months before my first visit, and I was quite surprised by it. Although it is a business town, a bustling hub for visitors -both international and domestic, everyone I met there was really friendly, and uber-fashionable.
In Osaka, it is easy for me to feel daunted by the tall, towering buildings, the immensity of the city sprawl, and the solo traveller factor. The people's attitudes do help with combatting this, as they are always ready with a willing smile, but you always know you're alone in a big city.
This visit, however, was not solo! Danilo was with me, and I wanted to show him the sights of Osaka - though I hadn't (and haven't) seen them all myself. We stopped off at the visitors center to pick up a map, and decided to head to the bay area.
There, we rode the huge Tempozan ferris wheel, played video games and basketball in the arcade, and oohed and ahhed in wonder at the beautiful whale sharks, giant manta rays, and glowing jellyfish at the aquarium. We even got to watch
some street performers as the sun went down.
It was a really nice feeling, being together with someone and seeing the sights. Living alone for 4 months had numbed me a bit, and so to be able to hug someone freely and walk shoulder to shoulder with them was a nice change from trudging along by myself.
We both took a heap of photos, and I'm not sure if it was the height or the heat but some of the ferris wheel ones are a bit disturbing. After hanging around at the bay area, we headed to Shinsaibashi, an area which really lights up at night.
The main reason I wanted to take him there was to try some takoyaki - an official Osaka delicacy offered all over the country. I took him to the Takoyaki Jazz and Blues bar - which you may have read about in the Capsule Hotel blog - but it was closed!
We found some somewhere else nearby, and then went to see the Doutonbori lights. We found a really nice place to eat in Doutonbori as well, with a touch screen ordering system. I really love Japan for that. Instead
of mangling my way thorugh ordering food, I could just look at the picture and press a button. Yippee! It seems that our whole time together was spent eating....but that's because the food here is really something else.
We opted to stay overnight in Osaka, to save on time spent travelling to and from the large city. I suggested a capsule hotel, but Danilo had a better idea. Why not try a love hotel? There are hotels here where you can pay by the hour, and they are notably used for certain rendezvous. It saves people doing it out on the street or in their cars, I guess. They also offer the option to stay the whole night, so we went for that one.
Since it was Obon week, we had a lot of trouble finding one that would take us, and when we found some with available rooms, they quoted exorbitant prices! I guess the niceness didn't make it as far as the hotel lobbies! (Obon is the time where Japanese people head back to their home towns to hold ceremonies for their ancestors...lighting lanterns so their ancestors' spirits can find their way to their descendants.)
We finally found one that charged us a normal price (¥5000 for the night...$55) - It was called 'Cordon Bleu'.... and these really are kitted out. You pick your rooms downstairs, by looking at little photos of them and then getting a card and paying through a little hole in the wall. The hole has a curtain over it, to give you a feeling of privacy.
I have a feeling that the people inside don't peek out very often to see who they're serving, and the hotel guests probably like it that way. Some love hotels are actually automated, and there is no person downstairs at all! Danio and I saw some odd couples exiting hotels as we searched for our own...all of the women seemed to be gorgeous examples of beauty, yet the men seemed to be examples of, well....have you ever read the story 'Billy goat's gruff?'...Think about what lives underneath the bridge.
Once we had our room key, we went on up through narrow corridors of green wallpaper, and piles of bed linen around the place. It seemed to have a high turnover. We knew the purpose of this hotel as we travelled to our
soom, but even if we didn't, we would have figured it out. A blind man could have figured it out!
The room starts off tame, with a small vending machine style fridge, and a microwave and kettle, then you start to clue on with the hot pink wall lighting and retro wallpaper. If that didn't do it for you, then take a peek into the bathroom, with black mosaic tiles and a red rose design. Add to that the karaoke machine, gaming controls and free pornography, and you have yourself a love hotel.
Unfortunately, I was so worn out from our day, that after having a bath I fell straight to sleep, and we didn't even get to...............................................................sing karaoke. What a waste of a love hotel!
Our next day was spent at Osaka Castle, an 8 storey vision in white. They have converted it into a museum, and they have regulated how you get up and down the thing in such a way that we were lost from the very beginning. In hindsight it is really well done, but once we had started, there was no way we could go back.
You can take the
lift up to the 8th floor, but then you have to take the stairs to descend, as it's a one way trip up. If you walk up the stairs to the second floor, there is no elevator access, and none on floors 3-8 either. If you walk up, you walk down....something I wish I had known 2 hours before I finally exited the building.
You would be forgiven for mistaking it for a zoo, that's how busy it was, and though it is full of history, beautiful silk hangings, weaponry, and old literature....once you've seen one scroll, you've seen them all. I was struck by that awful desinsitized feeling people often get in museums and gallerys, and wondered, do i really have to see the top?
Once you arrive at the top though, it does pay off, because you get a gust of cool air once you open the doors, and you can step out on to a balcony allowing you so see far into the distance in all directions of the compass.
It's a breathtaking sight. We could see the imperial gardens we had walked through to make it there, and could see the buildings which
had sprung up in the distance too. It would really have been amazing to see pre-skyscraper days, that's for sure.
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Kathy
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So glad you got to experience a love hotel chica! That's another thing you can cross off your 'to do' list...but not sure if you can really...seeing that you didn't end up 'doing it' in the hotel v(^v^)v