ダニエルの冒険

I slept longer than usual and had a strange dream where I came back to Limerick for just one day, because I was meeting Yasuko in Cork. My family was in Dublin for the day so I couldn’t meet them but recently Ireland had experienced a Japan craze and girls in Limerick were dressed in pink lacy dresses complete with oversized hats and matching umbrellas, like some girls in Tokyo do. Suddenly I was in Dublin with my grandpa, in Phoenix Park, and a lady was selling something or other and was calling out to possible customers in Japanese. He answered back in Japanese but I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say as he had just started and his vocabulary and grammar were far from natural. I asked why he started learning Japanese and he told me that since there’s so much Japanese TV recently it helped to understand. Perhaps Sumo was taking over from cricket since the craze began? I was woken up by a message from Yasuko. I went to check out of the hotel, but no one was at the reception, so I wrote the following note and left it with my key behind the desk. I also left my mobile number at the end. I didn’t receive any call.

ありがとうございました。 check outします。 ９０４のダニエル

“Thank you very much. I’m checking out now. Daniel from 904″ (my room number)

The message from Yasuko said to get on the train to Umeda and meet her at exit number 5. And to ride at the very back of the train. I didn’t understand this last part but missed the first train because it took so long to walk from the front to the back along the platform. I boarded the next one, from the back, and arrived at Umeda with a half hour to spare so I spent some time wandering around the nearby Yodobashi, looking at TVs and such.

We met at 11am and went back into Yodobashi up to the top floor to Fugetsu, an Okonomiyaki restaurant, which is actually the same restaurant as the one I ate at with Daisuke last summer! Yasuko apologised for this but I reassured her that it’s a good thing, because I enjoyed the last time so much. Knowing that shrimp was ahead, I was glad to know that I had been to the same place before. We had the shrimp and beef okonomiyaki from the menu and it really was good, but I wasn’t able to finish mine. As I worked my way through mine, the last bits seemed to get stronger in flavour so that when I finally went to eat the last quadrant, it wasn’t tasting so good.

After the meal, we went on the train out to Osaka Castle. The park was spacious and I heard a drum beat in the distance. Some snow was left in the shadows by the steps leading down from the station. We approached the drum beat and as we got closer I heard a synthesiser, and then vocals. A band was set up in the park in front of the castle and they were playing some pretty good music. We walked past and went into the castle, got our tickets and worked our way up from the bottom floor to the top, checking out all the exhibits, historical artefacts and various dioramas on the way. I did my best to digest as much as I could but the amount of information was overwhelming. A large amount of which had to do with Sengoku, Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Ieyasu Tokugawa taking power and unifying Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate at the Battle of Sekigahara. The Siege of Osaka was also featured heavily, particularly the Summer Campaign.

After we finished at the castle, we walked back towards the station and passed the same band as we had passed earlier, although this time with an old man dancing energetically in the middle of the crowd. He must have been at least 70 years old, possibly 80, and was about 5 feet tall, with short shaved snow white hair, large glasses, white Nikes, and the biggest grin you’ve even seen. He took his jacket off after the first song we watched and danced for another. He put it back on when it finished and was about to walk away, but when the music started again he couldn’t help himself, dropped his bag and took off the jacket again, dancing even more energetically than before. It was actually a pretty inspiring sight and quite a big part of me wanted to join him.

The band is called Highlight and here’s a video of them with the man dancing:

Excuse the shaky camera. It was hard to steady it while laughing so much.

After dragging myself away from the band and old man, we got onto the train, boarding at the very back, and went back to Umeda. I asked about the boarding at the back thing and Yasuko said that the exit we want at the next station is near the back of the train, so if you board at the right side it saves you walking when you get off. First time I’ve ever heard of someone doing that here. That sort of thinking reminds me of myself

At Yodobashi we ate at a cafe on the 8th floor, in an area called “Sweet Museum” hidden behind UNIQLO (a clothes shop), and she saw me off at the ticket stall. I got on the Midosuji Line, second platform, headed north, changed to Shinkansen, and got home by 8pm. It really was a great weekend. Next weekend is still up in the air but the following weekend is Gunma and the one after that is looking like Disney Sea. Maybe I’ll go to Kobe next weekend. I want to see much more of the Kansai area (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe region). I really felt comfortable in Osaka and the people seemed a lot warmer than in Tokyo. People said that to me a lot but I didn’t assume that I would actually experience it myself, but it really did turn out like that. I’ve been told that Kobe is the Cork of Japan. I’m looking forward to seeing how true that is for myself.