Osaka

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Osaka

Finally we had reached land.... trains in Japan are very efficient and easy to use and with a rail pass a hell of lot cheaper, so getting to the hostel was extremely easy as we have made one rule for booking accommodation which is that it should be no more that 10min walk from a station.

We had planned to stay 5nights in Osaka as we planned to stay longer in Japan than what was booked, which we thought would be a easy thing to do, we found out that later that it was that easy and we had to keep with the original plan which messed up our timing for our rail pass, so we missed out on other places in Japan by staying in Osaka for too long, but looking back now, I love Osaka and its laid back vibe and it was quite nice for a change to explore the sightseeing attractions over 5 days instead of running round the city like maniacs to fit everything in.
The hostel was eerily quite, a lot different from the hostels in China. The hostels in Japan were quiet with an older crowd, more couples and no-one really hung out in the hostel common room in the evenings. So to find a bit of life we decided to find some action in the area around the hostel. We ended up in a standing bar (there is quite a lot of bars in Japan that are very small and can only fit about 5 people in standing of course, they sell one kind of beer and sell small snacks). The pub owner was sitting down watching baseball on a small TV screen in the corner of the bar. No-one else was in the bar and we thought we may have disturbed the poor guy watching his team play, but he was the friendliest person ever, he spoke broken English but between the three of us we had a lovely conversation. He told us about places to go in Japan and what to do in Osaka and we told him of our trip. The bar owner insisted that we wrote our Japan trip down on a piece of paper. Japanese seam to carry a notebook and pen, like a social black book not a dating black book. Ohh Fi do you remember our black books!! In this little bar we tried Chinese dumplings called Gyoza...I know we spend two weeks in China not once did we try this type of dumpling. Gyozas are lovely, small light pastry with lamb or beef mince served with a soy sauce mixed with a chili souse. Beautiful. Another customer came into the bar a Korean Women who did not speak English at all, but was fascinated by two foreigners finding this bar and wanted to drink in there. So with the bar owner acting as the mediator, we told her about our trip and where we plan to go in return she gave us cold liver to munch on....which was nowhere near as good as the gyoza, but I did get the pleasure of watching James attempt to be nice by eating as much liver as he could, it was good we had cold beer to watch it down with, but this women was lovely really enthusiastic and wanted to know as much as possible about us in a nice friendly way. When she left, the bar owner explained that she had brought us a beer to say thank you for the conversation (she didn't even speak English) How nice was it that she offered the drink when she left.....the possibility of us buying one back was not an option, she just wanted to do something nice. When we left, the bar owner walked us to the door and waived us goodbye. Loving Japan already.

The next day we visited the Osaka-Jo castle and walked round the gardens. We learnt about the life and tribulations of Toyoyomi Hideyoshi, who killed his own sons and wives because he felt threatened by them.
We experienced the vending machines that looked liked washing machines and had a pocary sweat a sporty drink that did taste like sweat!!! Horrid, but I am a fan of the vending drink called match!! For the evening we went to the Umeda Sky Building, which is quite an interesting building on the outside a bit like a modern arc de triomphe but very strange and cheesy on the inside. At the top of the tower there is a room where you can play music with your arse (just to clarify, that is done by seating on chairs not by any other means) a glittery pathway for you to walk round the top of the building to see the beautiful views, cheesy photo opts with big hearts and padlocks (like the bridge in paris - where you declare you love by using a padlock) all very cheesy but in a good way.

The next day we spent the day at the aquarium, the aquarium is quite good full of sharks, spider crabs, penguins, otters and dolphins, we then ventured to a nice restaurant in Minami called Chibo which sold the best okanomiyaki. It’s quite a strange meal that sweet and savory; we had ours with fish and potatoes. We spent the evening checking out a few bars around the area.

The next day we had a day trip out to Nara. An old capital with loads of world heritage sites, we spent the day ambling round gardens and museums (fuck how old,do I sound). There were loads of wild deer roaming around and loads of street vendor selling deer food. Why would anybody not want to feed these lovely cute and friendly creatures? So I did and the god dam deer bit me on the stomach, resulting in a lovely bruise the following day. A fact for people "deers are EVIL" We visited numerous temples and saw wooden Buddha’s, great Buddha’s, small tiny Buddha’s surrounding one of the biggest Buddha’s, healing Buddha and loads of Buddha related statues of guardians, petals and there was one wooden column with a hole through it.....if you can go through the hole you will reach enlightenment, its the size of the big Buddha’s nostril. I was however too fat to reach enlightenment. We also visited the shrine where they hold the lantern festivals, which when looking at all the lantern must be a fantastic place to be. For lunch we had Udon noodles curry style, which were gorgeous.

On the evening we decided to go to a rock and roll club called Rock club advertised in one of the bars we went to the night before. We hoped to get a few people involved in going out with us....but the hostel was dead, just me and James playing cards and drinking beer ( as drinking is an expensive past time in Japan, drinking in the hostel is the way forward) waiting for 11pm so we can head towards the club. The club wasn't really busy when we got there, one of the guys in the club came over and asked us where we come from....Birmingham, England usually gets a blank expression on this person however there was a look of knowledge and he was full of enthusiasm as he had recently been to the Birmingham academy to watch Hockey. He asked us what kind of music we liked.....”strokes, we are a big fan of the strokes”...he left us to carry on dancing. In a Japan club everyone faces the DJ and dances in a side to side motion like at a Jack Johnson gig. Not an indie club that I’m used to. Can you imagine snobs like that! The music was great but I was deeply disappointed when James pointed out the big sign in front of DJ saying in English only "DJ does not accept request" that it we need to leave!!! At this point the DJ changed and the guy who had been to Birmingham was the DJ and played about 7 strokes songs....YES my requests have been played. We met a couple of Spanish guys on their travels and we managed to persuade a group of Japanese dancers to turn against the strange gig like stance and dance in a circle. We met some really nice people and the music was brilliant with all the old snobs classics, they even played the Smiths - There is a light that never goes out, blur, two door cinema club, oasis, libertines, hot chip etc. James ordered two double yaggerbomb with redbull and ended up with a pint glass of yaggermeister with only a little redbull, which he did drink to himself. When it was time to leave after 5hrs of dancing we were escorted to the door and waived goodbye by the DJ’s, like we were VIP’s. There was no Kebab shops open by our hostel only a 24hr McDonalds.....so we ended up having a Mackie’s at 5am in the morning. Nice & classy. We were surprised by how many people where actually in MacDonald’s and the majority of people were camping out for the night ( Remember we are in Mackie’s for about 5am in the morning). An old granny, two lads asleep in on the booths and two girls about 17 blogging away. It was well strange.

The next day we spent hangover and spent it watching films (brassed off) We were persuaded by a Israeli couple to go to the local baths....I was under the impression that it was mixed so we could go in swimming gear. When we got there, that wasn't the case. Men and women were separate and I got naked with an Israeli girl I had only met for 5mins. After getting over the first few minutes of un-comfortableness, it wasn't too bad. There were 5 baths tubs....one warm one, a ridiculous hot bath, a cold bath, an ice bath and an electric bath. The electric bath was very strange a small electric shocks go through your whole body, you cant stay in there two long. James saw a guy dangling his penis in the electric bath. Strange. Also James saw a naked mafia guy with tattoos all over his body. After our first bathing experience in Japan, we went for some food, delicious noodles and then went back to our standing bar with the Israeli couple to spend an0other pleasant evening with the bar owner.

The next day we spent chilling in the hostel, eat some more delicious noodles and then set about travelling to Hiroshima.

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