Osaka part 2
Door: Martin
17 Oktober 2014 | Japan, Osaka
(don't forget to check out "Oskaka part one")
The night had been very comfortable until I woke up the first time and readjusted the aircon flow for the last 2 hours of sleep. Waking up de second time I now had one hell of a stiff neck because of the aircon blasting on it, what a rookie mistake. I sought solace in the hot thermal baths and my neck loosened up a bit and after enjoying some coffee in a delightful morning sun I was ready to continue exploring Osaka.
Osaka offers a day pass (or 2 day pass) for a very reasonable price of 17 euro which allowed me to use their subway system as well as provide me with free entrance at most of the sight in Osaka or discounts at others and restaurants and such.
My first stop of the day would be the Osaka museum of history, which looked very interesting. However my lack of understanding of Japanese made it an underwhelming experience, only very few pieces in the museum were deemed worthy of English subscript. The museum did offer some very nice views of Osaka from a high vantage point, including a view of my next destination, Osaka castle.
The only sight I knew of Osaka prior to my arrival (or watching Anthony Bourdain) was the castle. The castle had the usual moat and several walls for protection but as well as outside the moat as inside the inner walls there were plenty of trees and other green stuff to make it a very pleasant environment. Did the usual touristy stuff but that’s not too interesting, what was interesting was a conversation an old Japanese man struck op with me. Sadly I always second guess the intentions of any local talking to you in English and I’m always looking what their angle is. After being annoyed at first I had to change my view because the kind man simply wanted to find out who I was, why I was in his city and what I thought of it. The man had travelled quite a bit himself and it made for an interesting conversation.
Next I went to the museum of housing but not before getting side tracked and taking in some of the area surrounding the museum, which turned out to be a good thing. This museum had even less information in English but made up for the fact that you could dress up in traditional Japanese clothing. Being alone (cue the violins) I didn’t get dressed up as I thought it would be embarrassing to keep on asking strangers to take pictures of me.
I would try my luck in Umeda, where before leaving the station I was helped by a friendly Japanese man. Umeda is a massive station and I must have looked lost because after only looking around for maybe 20 seconds a nice man came up to me asking where I wanted to go. After telling him, he looked pensive for a moment before reaching the conclusion that it would be quicker to just take me there than to explain it. When after almost 10 minutes we reached my preferred exit I could see how this would have been a monumental task to explain it (and I surely would have gotten lost on the way and would have had to ask many more people where to go). I was going to HEP 5 on top of this luxury mall was a Ferris wheel which I could go into for gratis. Before doing so I explored the neighbouring area which took me forever, not helped by yet again ending up in a sushi bar with exquisite sushi. In order to walk off some of the sushi I checked out some of the stores to see what weirdness was being sold there. Walked into some shops that must have sold thousands upon thousands of manga comics, with the appropriate paraphernalia. There were even singers in cosplay singing in Japanese not your everyday comic book store I guess. Amongst many other weird stores I also had to check out another typical Japanese thing. An adult DVD store was a sight to behold, not only was I surprised to see that there were still people buying porn on DVD but I had never seen a 5 (maybe more, but that’s as far up as I wanted to go) story DVD store. Now for anyone who has “accidentally” ended up at a porn site on the internet might also have “accidentally” seen some weird fucking shit that is Japanese porn. In this store I also saw a fair share of this but to name just one example, I had never imagined that there be enough demand to justify a wall to wall (6 meters long with probably 8 or so shelves containing at least a thousand unique titles) “excrement” porn section.
In hope to forget about what I had just seen I went back to HEP 5 and got myself in that Ferris wheel to see a different part of Osaka in the waning moments of daylight. The individual carts were decked out with a sound system that allowed you to hook up your phone or mp3 player to it. I guess if you were on a date you could make it more romantic but I decided to party it up and dance like an idiot since I was pretty sure nobody could see me or would mind it.
My final sight would be yet another view from a high structure. The floating garden observatory was an impressive building where I could now gaze upon the city skyline as it was lit up by the many thousands of lights everywhere. It’s worth mentioning that at this point my feet were unwilling to walk any further so I had to bribe myself into keep on going on. I had contemplated spending the night in the Umeda area, but it seemed easier to catch the train tomorrow from Namba.
Catching the subway back to Namba proved how useful it had been that the nice Japanese man had escorted me earlier. It took me longer than I dare confessing here to finally end up at the right platform to catch the subway.
In Namba I set out to find an internet café for the night’s accommodation. After finding such a place I learned that it was as expensive as the capsule hotel but I could only stay there for 6 hours (otherwise it would be even more expensive than the capsule hotel), I could see how this was an option if you missed your train and would just crash a few hours before returning to one’s own bed, but for me it seemed like a bad idea to have to get up so early with not much to do on my final day. On the way out of the building I stumbled on an international party where I as a foreigner was awarded with free entry and a food voucher. So after nibbling on the food and some conversations with other guest present I left the party as the women-to-men ratio was ridiculous (and not in the right way).
After another nice stay at the capsule hotel I took it easy on my last morning in Osaka. There was not enough time to go out and see new stuff, so why not just enjoy some of the sights nearby and enjoy those. Finally tried some of the crab that Osaka is famous for and rightfully so, it was delicious. With another meal less flight ahead of me I thought now would be the perfect time to feast and test how many plates of sushi I could eat before starting to feel queasy.
The train back to the airport and the flight itself turned out to be very smooth although the flight did take longer again because of that typhoon that was still in the area apparently.
All in all it was a really nice weekend. Osaka may not have the grandeur of a Tokyo (or Kyoto but I haven’t been there) but it is a pleasant city to explore for a weekend if not for the sights than certainly for the food.
The night had been very comfortable until I woke up the first time and readjusted the aircon flow for the last 2 hours of sleep. Waking up de second time I now had one hell of a stiff neck because of the aircon blasting on it, what a rookie mistake. I sought solace in the hot thermal baths and my neck loosened up a bit and after enjoying some coffee in a delightful morning sun I was ready to continue exploring Osaka.
Osaka offers a day pass (or 2 day pass) for a very reasonable price of 17 euro which allowed me to use their subway system as well as provide me with free entrance at most of the sight in Osaka or discounts at others and restaurants and such.
My first stop of the day would be the Osaka museum of history, which looked very interesting. However my lack of understanding of Japanese made it an underwhelming experience, only very few pieces in the museum were deemed worthy of English subscript. The museum did offer some very nice views of Osaka from a high vantage point, including a view of my next destination, Osaka castle.
The only sight I knew of Osaka prior to my arrival (or watching Anthony Bourdain) was the castle. The castle had the usual moat and several walls for protection but as well as outside the moat as inside the inner walls there were plenty of trees and other green stuff to make it a very pleasant environment. Did the usual touristy stuff but that’s not too interesting, what was interesting was a conversation an old Japanese man struck op with me. Sadly I always second guess the intentions of any local talking to you in English and I’m always looking what their angle is. After being annoyed at first I had to change my view because the kind man simply wanted to find out who I was, why I was in his city and what I thought of it. The man had travelled quite a bit himself and it made for an interesting conversation.
Next I went to the museum of housing but not before getting side tracked and taking in some of the area surrounding the museum, which turned out to be a good thing. This museum had even less information in English but made up for the fact that you could dress up in traditional Japanese clothing. Being alone (cue the violins) I didn’t get dressed up as I thought it would be embarrassing to keep on asking strangers to take pictures of me.
I would try my luck in Umeda, where before leaving the station I was helped by a friendly Japanese man. Umeda is a massive station and I must have looked lost because after only looking around for maybe 20 seconds a nice man came up to me asking where I wanted to go. After telling him, he looked pensive for a moment before reaching the conclusion that it would be quicker to just take me there than to explain it. When after almost 10 minutes we reached my preferred exit I could see how this would have been a monumental task to explain it (and I surely would have gotten lost on the way and would have had to ask many more people where to go). I was going to HEP 5 on top of this luxury mall was a Ferris wheel which I could go into for gratis. Before doing so I explored the neighbouring area which took me forever, not helped by yet again ending up in a sushi bar with exquisite sushi. In order to walk off some of the sushi I checked out some of the stores to see what weirdness was being sold there. Walked into some shops that must have sold thousands upon thousands of manga comics, with the appropriate paraphernalia. There were even singers in cosplay singing in Japanese not your everyday comic book store I guess. Amongst many other weird stores I also had to check out another typical Japanese thing. An adult DVD store was a sight to behold, not only was I surprised to see that there were still people buying porn on DVD but I had never seen a 5 (maybe more, but that’s as far up as I wanted to go) story DVD store. Now for anyone who has “accidentally” ended up at a porn site on the internet might also have “accidentally” seen some weird fucking shit that is Japanese porn. In this store I also saw a fair share of this but to name just one example, I had never imagined that there be enough demand to justify a wall to wall (6 meters long with probably 8 or so shelves containing at least a thousand unique titles) “excrement” porn section.
In hope to forget about what I had just seen I went back to HEP 5 and got myself in that Ferris wheel to see a different part of Osaka in the waning moments of daylight. The individual carts were decked out with a sound system that allowed you to hook up your phone or mp3 player to it. I guess if you were on a date you could make it more romantic but I decided to party it up and dance like an idiot since I was pretty sure nobody could see me or would mind it.
My final sight would be yet another view from a high structure. The floating garden observatory was an impressive building where I could now gaze upon the city skyline as it was lit up by the many thousands of lights everywhere. It’s worth mentioning that at this point my feet were unwilling to walk any further so I had to bribe myself into keep on going on. I had contemplated spending the night in the Umeda area, but it seemed easier to catch the train tomorrow from Namba.
Catching the subway back to Namba proved how useful it had been that the nice Japanese man had escorted me earlier. It took me longer than I dare confessing here to finally end up at the right platform to catch the subway.
In Namba I set out to find an internet café for the night’s accommodation. After finding such a place I learned that it was as expensive as the capsule hotel but I could only stay there for 6 hours (otherwise it would be even more expensive than the capsule hotel), I could see how this was an option if you missed your train and would just crash a few hours before returning to one’s own bed, but for me it seemed like a bad idea to have to get up so early with not much to do on my final day. On the way out of the building I stumbled on an international party where I as a foreigner was awarded with free entry and a food voucher. So after nibbling on the food and some conversations with other guest present I left the party as the women-to-men ratio was ridiculous (and not in the right way).
After another nice stay at the capsule hotel I took it easy on my last morning in Osaka. There was not enough time to go out and see new stuff, so why not just enjoy some of the sights nearby and enjoy those. Finally tried some of the crab that Osaka is famous for and rightfully so, it was delicious. With another meal less flight ahead of me I thought now would be the perfect time to feast and test how many plates of sushi I could eat before starting to feel queasy.
The train back to the airport and the flight itself turned out to be very smooth although the flight did take longer again because of that typhoon that was still in the area apparently.
All in all it was a really nice weekend. Osaka may not have the grandeur of a Tokyo (or Kyoto but I haven’t been there) but it is a pleasant city to explore for a weekend if not for the sights than certainly for the food.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
