30.10.10
Left the comfort zone of home again.

Arrived here Monday, big scary city. Fortunately Teruko met me at the airport. Train into the city. Hotel in Umeda, which is a central area with big railway station. 

view from hotel

First impressions- noisy, busy. There’s three levels of traffic in Umeda. A freeway above suspended above the ground, which is just below this hotel window, the ground, where the local traffic is, and the underground. Underground is a maze of pedestrian highways, shopping centers and restaurants. leading in and out of the various train lines. Confusing, busy and noisy.

they're building something

Osaka is a city of twenty million. That's nearly all the people of Australia in one place.

Teruko babysat me through the first couple of days, showed me around and helped me get started on this journey, for which I’m very thankful.

Teruko, my friend and guide

Yesterday she left me on my own in an enormous electrical store. she had to go to work for Thursday and Friday. We spent Wednesday outlining our journey and booking some tickets and rooms.

Talking things- Lifts talk to you, traffic lights talk to you. there was a singing garbage trolley down in the subway, garbage trucks talk up in the street. Shops yell at you. Its very noisy. 

plastic displays are everywhere

a wedding

Food- exquisite to, well, not so.

I had the most beautiful dinner on the second night, a work of art stimulating the senses.



Another night I expressed the desire to have Yakitori. I chose, from the ubiquitous plastic food display outside, a plate with four or five sticks with grilled meat, what I thought was chicken, beef, fish maybe etc. I was a bit shocked when I bit into the beef to find it was whole, almost raw chicken livers. It turns out that Yakitori means chicken something. So the other sticks with grilled things on them were- Chicken gizzard (gag), chicken livers, already mentioned, a whole stick of chicken skin skewered and grilled (fatty) and chicken meatballs with god knows what in them. I was brave and ate most of it, except the gizzards. It’s not too good to visualize the butchering of a chook while eating the various parts...
Teruko's favourite is the gizzards- 'it's crunchy!'

near the previous temple pic

Toilets range from the smelly porcelain hole in the ground, challenging, to the most sophisticated toilets on the planet. Some have heated seats so it feels like someone’s hot ass just got up to make way for yours. Most have inbuilt bum washing devices with various settings to send a perfectly aimed jet of ticklish warm water to “wash the posterior”. I was baffled at how this could work so studied it a bit more closely. When you press the button with a diagram of a bum, a small robotic arm emerges from its hiding place under the seat and delivers its spray of  warm water. You can adjust the intensity of the experience.

One such toilet in a shopping center had the bonus button called “Intense Deodoriser”. I didn’t try that for fear of emerging from the toilet smelling like who knows what. There’s lots of other delights, like not having to turn on a tap, you just hold you hands under it and the water comes out. Can’t help thinking that when any of these things break down what a nuisance they’d be to fix.

some oldies with their paper sunflower

Went to Osaka Castle, a shrine, a place what Teruko calls ‘downtown’. 


I walked to the museum of modern art yesterday, finding it all by myself and saw an exhibition about the dadaist Man Ray, oddly. The rest of the museum was a stark modern affair with minimal art on display, including a large sculpture made of leggo pieces. Yawn.

Left to my own devices I wandered through the streets of girly bars and nightclubs. Teruko wouldn’t take me down that street that is just near the hotel.


No one spoke to me. the girls on the street dressed as maids or looking like hookers holding cards with prices on them would look away when they saw me coming so I never found out what the prices were for. Apparently, according to a Google search they are ‘hostesses’ who you pay to let you buy them drinks, while they pretend that they really like you. Well I guess I was just too hairy and weird looking.

nice manholes

I Got thirsty and saw a quiet bar where I thought I’d have a drink. the man at the front said over politely that ‘club only for Japanese’ bowing very low. My impression of this is that while this Japanese man was extremely polite he’s really saying, "we don’t want foreigners around here so piss off"

 Out of Osaka today on bullet train north to Sendai.


Sorry about the pictures. You used to be able to click on them for a full size view, but somehow that feature has disappeared. Working on it. For now I'm going to make them bigger.

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