Lost in Translation
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2008
1
21
71
Trip End
Sep 03, 2009
Osaka,
Kinki,
Japan
Sunday, December 7, 2008
In a land of convenience, customer service and bird sounds played on repeat over speakers, bullet trains fly daily at record breaking speeds, carrying their cargo of Japanese business men, school children, elderly people and one slightly bewildered backpacker from England with a huge rucksack and a random assortment of other luggage, one bag usually containing at least two types of chocolate, or the wrappers thereof. She can also be recognised by the fact she is A: Not Japanese, B: taking photos of everything in sight, Japanese tourist style and C: smelling faintly of monkey S*** (but we'll come back to that one another day)
Osaka castle 1
.And so, you will probably not be too surprised by now when I tell you it took me over 3 hours to complete what could have been a 45 minute journey from the airport to my hostel. About an hour of that was spent trying to find my way from the train station to the subway, which was of course, only across the road. It was at this point that I realised not being able to read any of the Japanese alphabets was going to make things difficult. It was at this point I realised that not being able to speak a word of Japanese was going to make things even more difficult.
Upon my arrival, I was told that most people either love or hate Osaka. This was my first introduction to what has become a reoccurring theme in my relationship to Japan. Bombed almost completely flat in WW2, Osaka is an endless expanse of concrete blocks, that only really come to life at night, at which point the streets fill with crowds under the bright lights. As this was my first encounter with Japan, and the souvenir shops, the food and the castle held a particularly high novelty value with me at this point, I loved it. Yes, its a dirty city, and one that I soon realised was pretty much the same as every city in Japan, but I was lulled by the pretty neon lights and cute phone dangly charms.
Osaka Castle moat
I spent my first full day in Japan at the castle. To be honest, the surrounding gardens and temple had more appeal that the castle museum, I marvelled with Grant, my current companion, at the fact there were six men sitting up a tree pruning it. And then we emerged into the square near the castle and found a random film set in the grounds. Something becoming a bit of a habit of mine it seems. We braved asking one of the extras, dressed as an American solider what they were filming and apparently it was going to be a major TV series about war-time Japan. We watched as they drove a military vehicle through the forming crowds. We watched as twenty-odd people walked and ran into the building and then rewound, only to repeat the sequence three or four times. Almost as soon as they had filmed the scene, and the cry of "Kuto, kuto, kuto!" came from the director (Lost in Translation fans will understand), the lunch break was called and within 2 minutes the entire cast and crew had vanished along with all their props and equipment. All that was left was the onlooking crowd who quickly dispersed too. You would never have known they were even there.
The next day, we headed into an area that the guide-book described as once being the cultural centre of Osaka, now it has become run-down and is full of "shady-characters"
Maple leaves
. So of course, with a description like that, we had to explore. Sure enough, as soon as we came out of the underground, we were greeted with nearly deserted streets, the only people left had no front teeth for some very strange reason. Venturing towards the centre of the area, we had to skirt round an old man, peeing quite happily in the middle of the street, in between some bicycles. Maybe he thought the bicycles would create some sort of magical screen, rendering him invisible, but I have to say, it wasn`t working. Walking along, people openly stared at the Gaijins (foreigners) heading down the street.We reached an area that I can only describe as the Japanese version of Blackpool. Full of tacky tourist shops and restaurants (which being Osaka, featured Takoyaki heavily- balls filled with octopus, I can`t say I`m a fan). There was even a mall, completely deserted with a rollercoaster running through its top floors. Yet the amazing thing was, you could walk straight through it, and there was no vandalism, no graffiti, it was just empty. Only in Japan, which has one of the worlds lowest crime rates. If you drop your wallet or camera somewhere in public, you almost guarantee it will still be there when you get back.
*,**and*** These statistics are completely made up, as the Internet is
too expensive here for me to waste my time researching the actual
correct values, but you get the idea!
P.S. I'm pleased to report that the monkey smell washed off.
