Trip diary: March 19th, 2007

Put it on a stick and I will eat it.

Woke up at 4 in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep so I played with my PSP. Charles got up at about 7 and left to go to see the sumo fights. I took a leisurely shower and wrote the journal entry for the previous day.

At around 9 I made my way out of the hotel with every intention of getting lost in Osaka so I would have to figure out the city. I took the subway to Nipponbashi eki which is connected to a huge underground shopping mall. I wandered the shopping mall and took an exit that I didn't know from my previous visits to the mall.

I found myself in a parking lot. Turning left out of the parking lot and taking a few random turns brought me to a major intersection. I turned left again and started walking.

I was in a business section. Lots of tall buildings everywhere. I think I was the cause of quite a few discussions around the water cooler. I haven't mentioned yet that I had decided to wear my kilt that day. Under normal circumstances Japanese people stare at me but in a very polite way. They try don't want me to know that they are staring and whispering to each other. With the kilt, all pretence of politeness went out the window. They openly stared at me. They pointed and giggled.

Walking along this major street I saw a sign saying “Osaka Station” with an arrow pointing straight ahead. On the train trips to and from Kobe the day before we spotted a building that we dubbed 'Funky building' that was near Osaka eki. We were thinking of going to get a close up view of it anyway so I kept walking in that direction.

About an hour after I first saw a sign for the station I made it there. Osaka eki is huge and complex. You can get lost very easily. I had been here on my last trip to Japan so I thought I remembered how to get around. I was mistaken. The station has changed quite a bit in the past 5 years. I got lost and then found something I remembered but everything else around it had changed. I then got lost again and the process would start over.

Eventually I made my way out the north exit of the station and saw Funky Building. It was still a couple of blocks away so I looked for a way to get to it. Between me and it was a large industrial section that I had to take the long way around. The whole neighbourhood had a bit of a blue collar feel to it. It was very different feel from the big business feel on the south side of the station.

Keeping 'Funky Building' in sight I weaved my way towards it. It looked like it was really close but no matter how much I walked it never seemed to get any closer until suddenly I was right there.

Funky Building's real name is Umeda Sky Building. Trivia point: this building was one of the buildings you could get in SimCity 3000.

I didn't feel like going up to the observation deck because by this time I was regretting my decision to wear the kilt. My inner thighs were chaffing like mad and I was tired. The combination of pain and sleep deprivation was making me cranky.

It was about 11:30 by this time and I was getting hungry so I thought I would get lunch at a Yoshinoya I passed on my way to Osaka eki. I walked back to Osaka eki and made my way through without any problems this time.

I walked back down the major street until I saw the Yoshinoya. It was at this point that I learned a major axiom of life in Japan. “Never ever go for lunch at around lunch time”. Yoshinoya was packed. And there was a line up. Every food place had a line in front of it. I kept walking and passed the enterence for an underground shopping mall. I went in and found the area of the mall with all the restaurants. There were people everywhere. I went out and kept walking down the street.

By this time I had adopted the 'sumo walk' to keep my thighs from getting any worse. The sumo walk is the walk I noticed all the sumo guy doing. It involves holding your feet further apart than is normal. The stance makes you walk a little bit more with your hips and a little less with your knees.

At around 11:50 I passed a Mos Burger that wasn't overly crowded. I studied the menu for a little while and decided on a chicken burger. The only seats available at that moment were at a table that had tall stools around it. I took a stool and sat down. I then realized that I was probably flashing all the people on the other side of the restaurant. I tried to close my legs but the chaffing was so great that I couldn't do that without pain so I stuffed the fabric of the kilt down between my legs and made do.

I sat at the restaurant for a while hoping that the pain would recede a little. It didn't. I reluctantly got up and started making my way back down the street. I passed a subway entrance so I decided to take the subway back to the hotel.

I went in to the station and looked at the subway map. Stroke of luck! The line that goes right in front of the hotel stopped at this station. I bought a ticket for the ride and walked through the gate. I needed to take the Midosuji line to Dobutsuenmae eki, which has an entrance directly in front of the hotel. There were signs that said “Midosuji line this way” so I followed them. They led me down a long corridor and some stairs to a platform, but it was not the platform I wanted. At the far end of the platform there was another sign saying “this way!” so I went that way. Up a flight of stairs and another long hallway and down some more stairs and I was at another platform. Still not the one I wanted. At the far end of the plat form was another sign saying “just a little farther”. I was just about ready to punch someone but I kept on. Some more stairs and another long corridor then some more stairs got me to the platform I wanted, just in time to see the train pull out of the station. Whee!

I waited a few minutes for the next train to come and boarded it with all haste in an attempt to get a seat. All the seats in the car were full so I had to stand.

At Dobutsuenmae eki I managed to exit via the wrong exit. Not a big deal. Just meant a little bit more walking.

I got in the hotel and bought a drink from the lobby vending machine. I went up to the room and put the cold bottle between my legs to cool the burning caused by the chafing. I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. I found a cool show for kids to teach chemistry called “Super Chemistry”.

I soon fell asleep out of shear exhaustion. Next thing I know it is late at night and Charles came back to the hotel. We chatted for a little bit and I fell back asleep.