O saka it to me

I make no apologies for the title. I do, however, apologize for the length of this entry. Put please try and power through, there are one or two good parts hidden in this sordid tale that are like M&Ms in a bag of trail mix.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote, and life has been real busy- but a better way to put it would probably be 'rich with experiences'. Tonight, for example: after spending an extra hour after work to help the kids practice for the district-wide Junior High English speech contest next Tuesday ('important musical instrument' must be one of the most difficult possible phrases to pronounce correctly with an American accent), I got home and whipped up some gyoza and cold somen noodles for dinner with Spooky, followed by a Chili Peppers/Ratatat jam session. Then we met up with some other ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) who stopped on their way through town at the Italian-style 'Tao' cafe across the street. One delicious chocolate float later, we swung by a ramen truck that had pulled up outside in the parking lot and got some hearty bowls of steaming noodles with seasoned pork and vegetables. For those of you who've done some time in Walla Walla, these Ramen trucks are the Japanese equivalent of the taco trucks, except that they play catchy little melodies when they drive up and are open until 1am most weeknights.

Crossing highway three via the pedestrian bridge that practically leads to my doorstep, we stopped at the top to look out over the urban jungle of Ueki for a spell, and discussed the important intellectual issues of the day such as the feasibility of leaping down onto a truck as it sped under if we were being chased by malevolent A.I.-gone-awry machines from the robotics factory down the road. Alex has to have a detailed Halloween poster prepared for a class presentation tomorrow so we spent the last hour coloring and writing basic explanations for ‘haunted houses‘ and why ‘trick-or-treat‘-ing was amazing as a kid (cultural education is fun!), and now we're listening to Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley on my laptop as Spooky works out the progression on his guitar. This is what life here in Japan is like between stuff like Radiohead concerts in Osaka and country music festivals at Mt. Aso, and well, things could be worse.

What was it like seeing a concert in Osaka? Quite a trip, actually. It all began... terribly. The secretary from work who had generously offered to help us buy the tickets ended up ordering the dates and destinations in reverse. When Alex, Holly and I showed up at 7pm to catch the overnight bus from Kumamoto to Osaka on Wednesday night, it slowly became apparent that the shuttle we stood by was full, and we instead held reservations for a different bus currently leaving a city hundreds of miles away and bound straight toward us. Well, shit. Several challenging cell phone calls in Japanese, 40 minutes and 30,000 yen in cancellation fees later we were on a different, fancier night bus up to Osaka, mostly thanks to some swift action on Holly‘s part. Of course, things could only get better from there, and get better they did.

The next morning at 7am we pulled into Japan's second largest city and unofficial gourmet food capital (and the purported birthplace of Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), found a Subway for a fresh and filling tuna sandwich, then found the subway for a quick and simple ride to our hotel. Being an international city, Osaka has much more English scattered about than I’m used to down south, making navigation not only possible but fairly straightforward. I should also mention that fast food across the board (including McDonalds and KFC- both very popular here) is much, much better in Japan, and the staff that run these little bites of U.S. culture have all the efficiency and courtesy their American counterparts lack. Even when I stumble into my friendly neighborhood McDonalds at 2am requesting a freshly made cinnamon melt, teriyaki McBurger and hot melon pie, the ladies working there still seem surprisingly genki (full of energy) and almost happy to see me. Or at least amused, which seems to be my general affect on people these days.

Anyway, next we went to Osaka's giant Ferris wheel for a scenic ride and then on to the aquarium , which was lovely. Though our visit coincided with the most massive elementary field trip God or more likely Satan ever conceived of, and we were forced to essentially ride on a shrieking river of adorable yellow-hat-wearing kids as their curious little minds pulled them from exhibit to exhibit, each new animal eliciting screams of delight that I sometimes worried would shatter the glass protecting us from the sea-dwelling predators waiting on the other side. Always waiting. To your left you can see a majestic whale shark lurking near the bottom, as promised. Then it was time for a nap at the hotel, and up again in time for Radiohead, which looked something like this:













A beautiful experience. Here is the set list for any Radiohead fans out there:

Reckoner
Optimistic
There There
15 Step
All I Need
You and Whose Army
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
The Gloaming
Videotape
Morning Bell
Faust Arp
No Surprises
Jigsaw Falling into Place
Idioteque
The National Anthem
Nude
Bodysnatchers

Encore 1

Airbag
Knives Out
Just
Where I End and You Begin
Planet Telex

Encore 2

Fog
Karma Police
Everything in its Right Place

The next day we explored the renowned side streets of Osaka and some enormous outdoor fish markets , along with sampling the local specialties- takoyaki (fried octopus dumplings) and okonomiyaki (sort of a seafood and flour pancake, and one of the better things I've ever had despite how that sounds). We ended Friday night in style at Osaka’s most notorious dance club- Club Pure, which we ran across accidentally at the end of a long, meandering search. The deal was all you can drink (nomihodai) for as long as you can stay (read: stand up). There were live DJs, at least three separate VIP lounges, and cozy little caves a small group could escape to when we needed a brief respite from the Pure techno/hip-hop powered adrenaline pounding through the club and our very VEINS. The music fueled a furious frenzy of physically incongruous dance styles, brought from all over the world and dropped hard on the main floor. The result was a dynamic chaos of movement that was pretty damn fun, all of it made even better by a more than decent line-up of unlimited cocktails coupled with frequent high-fives from a tall, jovial Hawaiian guy I befriended somewhere around drink three.

The night ended around 4:30am with a quick fill-up at a 24-hour ramen shop around the corner, then back to the hotel on a swift ship to sleepland as nearly-muted anime played on the TV.

An hour or so later the sun rose, and seven hours later our stalwart trio rallied and set out again into the great unknown. I distinctly remember sleepily pushing myself off my little quilt bed on the floor, walking out onto the compact smoking deck to gaze down at hundreds and hundreds of Japanese people going about their daily routine, and thinking how strange it was that this is the country I live in now. I pay utility bills covered with indecipherable kanji and wake up every morning on a futon laid over tatami mats. Except for that morning, where I woke up and felt thousands of miles from home. Love that feeling.

Emerging from this pleasant bit of introspection I rejoined Holly and Alex and we hit the streets again, soon finding a genuine Mexican restaurant in a nearby building that resembled a 30-story inverted hour glass. The scooped-from-avacados-before-our-eyes guacamole dip, fresh from the oven corn chips and '1800' tequila margaritas deserve mentioning, since my second favorite type of cuisine (Japanese food recently moved to the top) is pretty sparse here. Full and happy, we caught the subway down to Osaka castle to tour the tower and grounds, donning some ferocious Samurai gear at the top as the next logical step in our efforts to amuse the people who’s undivided attention we inevitably have anyway.

The final stop before our return bus trip was Spa World, a conglomeration of differently themed baths and water slides sprawling over three major stories of a large building. The “Asian” floor and the “European” floor are on a monthly rotation between the sexes (I got to explore everything from statue-studded Roman baths to a forested Norwegian hot spring and log sauna area), while the top floor is a family-oriented affair open to both genders with water slides crisscrossing overhead and a warm outdoor river running between large, moon-lit and mood-lit hot tubs. I could be way off, but I think introducing onsens like this to the U.S. could be a profitable venture. And they'd just be nice to have around.

Forced by circumstances beyond my control to leave this dreamlike world of spas, we boarded the bus and headed back home to Ueki, this time so relaxed and exhausted that I was able to pass out for the better part of the eleven-hour trip. So ended my journey to Osaka, land of commerce, gourmet food, and fantasy brought to life. I know I'll be back to explore the Asian-themed onsen world one of these days, but in the meantime there is a lot of Japan left to discover. Thanks for powering through, and please drop me a line at anderskg@gmail.com if we haven't talked in a while. Not every detail of these experiences makes it on this blog :)

Here's the complete line-up of pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/anderskg/Osaka
http://picasaweb.google.com/anderskg/HollysOsakaPics#