Day 104: (25 August 2011):
- Records starting to get sparse, writing in Early Nov. After starting work in SF.
- Ben was right, very dark in morning. Go back to sleep after Ben leaves for work.
- Arrange to meet Ben at a ramen place he’s been meaning to try at work but always has line.
-Check Google maps. Walked in wrong dir. from subway, but eventually found. Familiar ticketing system, atmosphere on streets, etc.
- Sit @ park across & Ben & coworkers arrive in a few min. Line too long. (Wait - did Ben’s co-workers show up this day? I don’t think so).
- One female “eingo-ninja.” One male, tiny bit of English. Exchange office. Nervous bowing.
- Go to tantan tsekimen place instead. 1-10 rated spicyness, black & white sesame. White (& any milder versions in Japan) for women. Also a 20 spicy black available from machine.
- Luckily, 3 black was the special (1 special per friday), only Y500.
- Amazingly tasty. Sesame water to accompany.
- Glad whenever indoors, as Osaka is surprisingly hot & humid. Sweating even when standing still.
- Grind your own sesame. Crispy rice soaked delicious.
- Set of rules & steps written on how to eat. Seems there are instructions (often with cartoons) in lots of restaurants.
- Short discussion of what to ho.
- Decide take slow walk/back, take subway if necessary.
- Easy directions from Ben. Show me where his office is. Walk to Umeda. Familiar. Yodobashi.
- Walked around Umeda for a while getting lost. Osaka station: underground surprisingly busy. Hanshin store. Look for bank / exchange. No real good rates.
- Decide may as well visit Sky Bld. Underground walkway with painted progress indicators on walls. Construction.
- Some kind of Science of Doraemon exhibit. Lots of kids & balloons.
- Go in lobby, directed me to outside up escalators. Decide take a look at Showa street underground, as written in Ben’s LP.
- Nothing too exciting. Some places with good atmosphere, but small. Good number of food stalls.
- Up to sky lobby. Cool glass elevator tube / shaft. Futuristic escalator tube with Japanese announcements. Very overhyped in LP, as usual.
- Buy ticket. Up to observation deck.
- Indoor deck has small viewing platforms & cafe. Overrun by kids from Doraemon exhibit.
- Nice views from inside deck, glass pretty clean.
- Outside deck dissappointing. Small circle track on square roof, so roof gets in way of view. Cool seeing down the open ring tough (through glass).
- Futuristic sounding announcements.
- lots of bridges. Lines of multiple trains constantly going in & out of station.
- See the bld with highway on ramp going through it again.
- Building with cathederal on it.
- Stayed a while to enjoy view & try compare view with map.
- Harbour & hills in distance. Dramatic clouds.
- Cool down a bit in Yodobashi. Song. Familiar bright busy store. Gotchapong lanes.
- See a few cool alleyways. Arrive at island park with city hall.
- Nice small park. Bridge joins a small garden section. Water sculpture show is just a big hose.
- Rest, read LP. Concrete shores nice effect against tidy blds.
- Bridge off island. Shinsaibashi to Namba very happening, big busy covered promenades.
- Should have stopped for some mochi & taiyaki, but still getting used to Japan (again).
- Lots of cool alleyways.
- Dotomburi.
- Walk back, pretty tired.
- Ben try to look for a summer festival, may have found one. Didn’t have much time to rest, meet Ben at subway stop.
- Not many snack stalls. Some kind of show. Lots of lanterns. People dressed up in traditional costumes.
- Tako sandwich with no takoyaki (ran out. Discounted price). Forgot to put mayonaise on mine, as expected, friendly, apologise, “will put on a lot!” Ben translate for me.
- Didn’t stay long, as is not the summer festival Ben hoped for.
- Walked to Americamura, familiar concrete triangle park. So strange to be back there with Ben again.
- Real tako sandwich. Delicious.
- Went to a motsunabe place he liked with Kevin (for some reason Kevin is recorded as Ken in a few places in notes). Happy to sit from day of walking.
- 2 nabes. Salty but delicious soup.
- Due to miscommunication, they gave us more salty soup, when we meant to say we were finishing the bit left. Lots of umami flavour. Surprisingly, the cheaper nabe was better than the spicy nabe. Hot gasses blowing in my face. Cool exhaust pipes.
- Quick walk through Nipponbashi / Den-Den Town. Ice cream bar. Mostly closed, but still some open. Smaller version of Akihabara. Cool covered sidewalks.
- Head back full & over salted. Also tired.
- Got a drink or two from supermarket. Fake beer, Autumn beers, chu-hi.
No comments:
Post a Comment