Osaka - August 2015

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Wednesday 12th August

From Osaka 2015

Feeling surprisingly fit, but with a few sore muscles, & still with a lingering queasiness, I headed to the Shinjuku Station Japan Rail office to collect a very useful document - my 3-week JR Pass. I was also able to book a seat for Osaka but there was a couple of hours' wait for the next available train. I decided to kill the time with a visit to the SkyTree, which had been nearing completion on my previous visit. The exercise proved to be a good practice run of the logistics and a reminder that the JR Pass doesn't apply to private lines or Metro trains (I had to use my Suica card a couple of times). It looked like it'd be a quick trip across town but it requires quite a bit of coordination. The transfer from JR to Metro at Ueno is quite a few minutes' walk, and I was tripped up by the several spatially distinct Asakusa stations and with the landmark looking deceptively close across the river, where I lost a bit of time heading towards the Toei line entrance when I was looking for the Tobu SkyTree line. All up it took me an hour to get there and with a bit of a queue for tickets, I figured that it was best to defer the plan and so headed to Oshiage metro station, and lucky I did - I only had a few minutes to spare for my Shinkansen journey when I got back to Tokyo station.

Crossing the country at warp speed, I wondered- what is the regulation duration for a game of peek-a-boo? The two girls (maybe 4 & 6yo) across the aisle and I went well into triple overtime- every time I moved set off fits of giggles and when I looked over at them there were howls of hilarity, for well over ninety minutes! When finally they reached their stop the younger turned back to me and low-5ed with a 'hello'. Meantime their mum was generally nonplussed.

From Shin-Osaka it took two more trains to get to Tennoji, where I realised I could've stayed on for 1 more station to get to Teradacho where my hotel was - I'd already taken 9 trains that day, so what's one more? At Teradacho (Japanese for teradactyl?) I tried to exit through the South gate which was unmanned - and the gates slammed shut. I had my JR Pass ready to wave, but with no-one to show it to, I was a bit stumped until a helpful local lady jumped in and addressed the intercom for me and by holding up my pass to a CCTV camera, gained my freedom.

The hotel was basic but functional - but I needed to stand near my room's entrance door to get any sort of reliable WiFi signal.

That evening I met up with some of my friends from taiko in Melbourne - Rizu, Nazu and their mum Emi - it was fantastic to see them all! They took me to a restaurant where there is a buffet with lots of raw fish, chicken and so forth on skewers, and a deep-fryer on each table and you cook your own meal - good fun! Also, quite hard to keep track of how much you've eaten. The restaurant seemed popular with a lot of young people and there was a good atmosphere there.

I decided to walk back- it was only a few hundred metres - presuming you head in the right direction, in this case - east, rather than north! I found myself at Shitennoji temple which was spectacularly lit up for the Bon festival. The evening's events seemed to be winding down and they were playing some pop music over the PA system, but there was still a bit of a crowd milling around. Meantime I'd deduced where my navigation had gone wrong and found the hotel again.

Thursday

From Osaka 2015

I headed up to Namba and did the short cruise on Dotombori which was nice; the commentary from the extremely lively guide was almost entirely in Japanese, though I could occasionally pick up a few words; and she occasionally dropped in an English phrase for me.

It was quite hot and I think I was still recovering from the climb, so my energy was quite low. I wandered around the JR Namba precinct and then found respite in the tourist office and spent a bit of time catching up on messages, before just heading back to Tennoji's Abeno Harukas building where checked out the shops and enjoyed the view from the lower observation deck.

In the afternoon I took the Kintetsu train out to see my friends at Patisserie Lolo - I had met Beni and Hana on the Shinkansen 4 years earlier and it was great to go back to their shop and enjoy their delicious (and healthy!) cakes, and to buy one for my hosts later that evening. Since my last visit, Beni has got married and had a baby, and it was fantastic that all of them came out to say hi - it was wonderful to meet Joshua and young Kenji.

Heading back to Tennoji, I experienced another 'gotcha' moment - I had bought two train tickets from Osaka Abenoashi to Takaminosato to visit Patisserie Lolo, expecting that I could use one to go there and the other for the return journey - however it appears that the tickets were for those precise journeys, including the direction, so I needed to buy an extra ticket. (I've just seen that Suica works in Osaka so perhaps I might have been able to use it instead?) I ducked back over to the hotel to collect my luggage and returned back to Tennoji station's Central gate, for the 2nd rendezvous in successive days.

I heard a voice - "pardon me, is your name Bernard?" and was warmly greeted by Mac, who I'd only known from photos - he's the husband of my dear friend Chiharu and she was close behind - it was brilliant to see her again, and to meet Mac! They took me to a Nepalese restaurant nearby and we had a wonderful meal while catching up on each others' news. (I was slightly concerned about how well the curries would sit in my stomach but with a little lassi everything was fine.) We then walked through Shitennoji temple - it was a bit earlier than my visit the night before and it was good to see the processions and some of the ceremonial elements relating to honoring the ancestors, in the lead-up to the weekend's Bon festival.

Next we took the train to Chi & Mac's place. Mac and I had a good several minutes to bond after Chi went to the bathroom and then found another exit from the station - she was almost home with us still waiting for her! They have a lovely apartment on the fringe of the Osaka suburbs in the Kokubu area. There I gave them a wedding present of a photo frame, and the cake (and imposed on them to do a load of washing!). Chi has a new ukulele and it was absolutely delightful to hear her sing and play again.

Friday

From Osaka 2015

I continued to practice my Japanese, and felt like I was becoming a bit more fluent in my set phrases:
Me: "Wakarimashite... Oyasuminasai... Tadaima Modorimashite... [etc...]"
Them: "Oh, very good! Well done!"
Me, continuing: "Ima, nanji desu ka..."
Them: *both look at the clock*

Meantime Chi often still fished for her pocket translator gadget which had been upgraded to a new model since the last visit, as a consequence of her trip to France a couple of years ago; however I'm pretty sure her English had improved significantly as well.

Chi had suggested visiting one of her clients (she trains guide dog users) in the mountains south of Nara, and we headed off to stay the night there. The roads were clogged with holiday traffic and the usual 90-minute (according to Google Maps) trip became a 4-hour odyssey, with several towns gridlocked en route. Still, we had a lot to catch up on and weren't in any rush. We stopped at a huge warehouse outlet for supplies & remember being quite confused with Chi's beckoning signal - in Japanese it's done palm-down which to my eyes looks a little like 'shooing away'.

We made it into the mountains and I was amazed by the engineering works - we passed major dams along the narrow valleys, and the highway itself was very impressive - the small mountain communities were linked by a road with long tunnels and bridges, including one section where the highway enters a tunnel, exits onto a bridge where you are facing the opposite direction, and re-enters the hillside higher up - vehicles basically do a 360° spiral to gain altitude.

Exiting from one of the tunnels we found the road to our host's house. There was a heavy gate, the mechanism of which took a few casualties (grazes and squashed knuckles) during the stay. We then had to drive about a kilometre up the side of the valley along a very rough, narrow and perilous single-lane road with a precipitous drop mere centimetres from the tyres - it looked like it may have been a well-maintained thoroughfare decades prior, but had since been supplanted by the main highway a couple of hundred metres below.

At the house we had a pleasant afternoon - our host had a couple of other visitors including Chi's boss and another guide dog user and his wife, and three guide dogs altogether. The conversation was mainly in Japanese, but I was able to contribute by repairing the house's trumpet - one of the valves had rotated in its cylinder. Chi, Mac and I went for a short walk to a small shrine nearby - the landscape was spectacular from our vantage point halfway up the very steep-sided valley.

Towards the evening we drove to a small village a few minutes' drive further on (guided by directions of "turn right at the phone box"), to join in the local Bon Odori festival. There was a small tower set up where a village elder would chant an epic poem, accompanied by a taiko player; meantime the tower was encircled by villagers performing the village dance. I saw a few village dances and each was a little different, but seemed to consist of many common elements - a roughly 6- or 8-bar pattern of stepping, turns, and clapping (at odd times), all while progressing slowly around the central tower. There were many individual variations - from the ladies with exquisite matching kimonos and very traditional styling, to the teenagers who put in some breakdance movements as well, to the little kids who would sometimes - very occasionally - turned the wrong way, to the tourists (ie me!) who nervously tried to copy the dance steps without causing too much offence. As I was the obvious visitor in town I was very conscious about sticking out but I had a very friendly welcome and a few of the locals approached me with stories about their visits to Australia. I was invited to play their taiko, which I wasn't sure about at first as I felt it might've been a bit presumptuous to just arrive and start making a bunch of noise, but finally decided to have a go and received some warm encouragement from the locals. I also handed the bachi over to both Mac and Chi, they both said they hadn't done much taiko before but I think they both put me to shame!

We were a little stuck trying to exit the festival - an arrogant driver making their way towards us up the single-lane access road took some convincing to let us through - even when they made room for the several cars to progress, their headlights shone right in everyone's eyes making it very difficult to pick the edges of the road. Back at the house we saw a couple more shooting stars which added even more to the magical location.

Saturday

From Osaka 2015

We packed up and headed back to Kokubu, passing some popular river beaches which looked rather inviting considering the warm temperatures. The traffic was still a bit challenging but not quite as bad as the day before. At Chi and Mac's house, we were joined by Chi's friend - also called Chiharu, a skateboarder and seamstress that had gone to university with Chi. It was great to see that she had as much difficulty in remembering the 'shoes on, shoes off' etiquette in the various parts of the house, as I did! It was also nice to get to meet some of Chi's community (husband, friends, colleagues, clients; and to hear about her family members) during the stay; on previous visits we'd just gone sightseeing together. The afternoon was spent in preparations for another Bon festival in Chihayaasakasa, about half an hour from their place. The girls dressed up in their kimonos while Mac and I got to wear Yukatas, and Chi and Mac had crafted a beautiful pair of geta (wooden sandals) for me to wear. During the afternoon I listened in to the footy on Mac's computer and explained to him a bit about the game and showed him some highlight clips. The Hawks did their bit, pulling out to a large lead.

This festival was a bit bigger and the tower much taller; it also had tree branches strapped to it which had small presents tied along its length; at various times a branch was cut free and fell to the ground where it was pounced on by kids and adults alike - I was tasked with getting a gift for Chi but wasn't quick enough (or too polite!) and missed out, although I was given a small plastic basket for my taiko playing.
After the visit we were booked in to an onsen hotel - it was my first time to try a proper Japanese onsen (rather than the tourist ones I'd tried before, that you wore a swimsuit in!). I think I was a little concerned that there was a proper ritual to follow but there were helpful instructions in English that were pretty much just common sense.

Back in the room, Mac and I passed the time while waiting for the girls, with Mac trying to teach me a Japanese variant of Chess - Shogi. I confess that I found it quite a challenge to keep track of - the pieces were distinguished with Japanese writing which I found very hard to remember, and they regularly changed properties (ie the directions they were allowed to move), and could magically return when they were taken.

I was keen to check my messages but the WiFi in the hotel was perplexing - I was directed to a sticker with the password but it had been written by hand by a person who was obviously not used to writing Roman characters - several of the characters could have been any of a number of letters or numbers or both. I exhaustively tried a bunch of possibilities with no success.

Sunday

From Osaka 2015

After a wonderful gourmet breakfast, including some ingredients that we cooked ourselves over tealight-style burners, we packed and checked out. Mac needed to return home so Chi and Chiharu joined me on a picnic in nearby Nagano Park. It was wonderful just to have a final check-up of where our lives were taking each of us. The other Chiharu had only limited English (matching my own tiny amount of Japanese) but somehow we managed to communicate quite well, via pocket translator, gestures and the simple words we knew in each other's language.

As always, it was very sad to have to say farewell to Chi, and I hope our paths will cross again sometime soon. She dropped Chiharu and I off at Kawachi-Nagano station, and we travelled together back to Osaka, having great fun despite our limited shared language. We parted ways as she headed to her home near Umeda and I continued on to Shin-Osaka and from there back to Tokyo - it was sad to have finished this section of the trip but I was excited to be meeting up with the main taiko tour!

Osaka overview

It was a whirlwind visit and great to catch up with so many friends! Thanks everybody!