Monday, August 21, Osaka, here we come…

Today we got up early. No more late showering this time. We even had time to spare before we left the Ryokan for our trip to Osaka. Everyone was ready to go at 10 am, and since the train left at 11.21 we had more than enough time for breakfast. I'll give you three guesses as to where we had our breakfast. Answers are welcome on the message board and the winner will get a kiss from Rocky.

After breakfast we noticed time was running out as usual and we had to hurry to Tokyo station to grab the Shinkansen train to Osaka. We got there with only 3 minutes to spare! Talk about a close call. We got on the train and to our surprise there were no luggage bins at the beginning and end of the train wagon. So we had to stash our luggage under our legs. Luckily there was enough room to stretch our legs, even with the luggage stuffed under our legs.

And so our ride to Osaka started. Three hours on a train in a foreign country, surrounded by foreign people, running at 200+ km/hour and sitting next to Reggy. I can imagine some better situations to be in (we'll not get into that since there are some women reading this diary as well). But in the end it all went as smooth as silk. I even slept for half an hour. I also got some time to read up on Osaka in The Lonely Planet. This was of course very valuable since both Reggy and Nafis hadn't done any research on the city. So I found some nice buildings and areas of the city to visit, as well as some info about the people who live there. Only time will tell if the book was right.

Reggy had some contact on the train with Mika, his female IRC friend from Osaka. She called when we were almost at Shin-Osaka station, because she was to pick us there. So when we arrived at Shin-Osaka station, she was there within 5 minutes. Hands and smiles were exchanged as we were ready to go to our hotel. This time it's a guest house named Shin-Osaka Guest House. This was by the way recommend by Mika. The good thing is that it is very close to Osaka centre. The guest house Nafis and Reggy had opted for via the internet is about 30 kilometres outside of Osaka, so this is a much better option.

The land lady picked us up in front of a hotel near the train station. From there it was about a 10 minutes walk to the guest house. At this moment I knew the coming days would be even harder on me than the days before. Why? Well, the temperature in Osaka is even 5-10 degrees higher than in Tokyo! And that wiped the smile from all our faces. So we walked and sweated our way to the guest house. When we arrived there the land lady told us every thing about the house we're gonna stay at. There is room for 10 people in this particular house. 2 Rooms with 4 people and 1 room with 2 people. There were already 4 guys in one of the rooms, so we had the option to take the 2 person room with 1 bed in the other 4 person room, or all three of us could sleep in the 2 person room (with 1 sleeping on the floor). The land lay told us that the was a Korean girl sleeping in the other room, so we opted to give her all the privacy a girl could get and take the 2 person room. I was to sleep on the floor. No problem of course, since I'm a seasoned LAN veteran who us used to sleep on airbeds.

After we checked in, Mika took us to Osaka centre. Nafis wanted to get a good book to learn Japanese, so Mika took us to a huge bookstore near Osaka Station. There we spent some time looking for good books on the subject, but found none that we thought could fit our needs. I accidentally ran into a CD package with 300 odd Japanese sentences. I showed it to Nafis and he thought it was okay for him, so he bought it. After that we all left for a shopping mall that was very close to the bookstore.

After the bookstore Mika took us to a coffee shop called Starbucks Coffee. I had never heard of that before I went to Japan. Sure I had seen a few of these shops in Tokyo, but I never went into one before. So I thought, what the hell am I to do in a coffee shop. I mean, I only drink coffee at work to keep me awake from all the hard work I do there, but else there is no coffee in my life. So here we stand in that Starbucks Coffee shop, looking at the menu. And I'm like "What the hell am I doing here". The Mika showed us a "Frappacinno". That is a cappuccino, with iced, whipped cream and some flavour. Well I opted for the Melon flavour and my life will never be the same again. I can't explain the sensation I had after my first sip, but I can tell you that it is a pretty amazing taste. I have never tasted this kind of drink before. You really have to try this when you are at a Starbucks Coffee shop somewhere in the world.

At the Starbucks Coffee shop I also noticed something that I hadn't noticed before. People were staring at us because we are pretty tall for Japanese standards. A funny thing happened when we were at Starbucks. There were 2 tall Japanese girls looking at me in awe. They are long for Japanese standards but I still am about a head taller than they are, so that was kind of funny to experience. After that we saw a lot of people looking at us. To me personally that is a very strange feeling since no one looks at me because of my length in Holland.

After Starbucks we walked through the mall and stopped at various shops. Clothing, sports accessories, shoes, Virgin Megastore, all kinds of shops. It kind of reminded me of "De Bijenkorf" in Amsterdam, but only a factor 5 larger. And the real funny thing is that there is a big "reuzenrad" (sorry, don't know the English word, but it is a giant wheel with cabins in which you can sit and look out of the window. It turns slowly so you can appreciate the view). I mean, you don't expect that somewhere in the middle of a city on top of a shopping mall.

When we were done the shopping mall we went out to a restaurant to grab bite. All that walking tends to make us all very hungry. So after walking around for about 15 minutes we found a nice little Italian restaurant. Reggy and Mika ordered a bowl of spaghetti and Nafis and I both ordered 1 for ourselves. That raised some eyebrows from the waiter because it turned out the bowls are rather large (woops). Well at that moment we couldn't back down of course, so we said we're big guys and it's okay. But when the food arrived people started laughing in the restaurant because they thought we could not finish that big a bowl of spaghetti. Boy were they wrong. Lately I'm not that big an eater, but today I was not to be laughed at! So I ate all of the spaghetti :). Nafis almost finished his, so that was okay too. And Reggy? Well he ate only half of the bowl together with Mika. So he kinda whimped :).

At this time it was getting a bit late so we went back to our "home away from home". We waved Mika goodbye at Shin-Osaka station and walked back to the guest house. There we met all the people who live here in the house. It turns out we have an American, a Israeli, a Indonesian, a Korean and a Japanese in the house. So we have all different kinds of cultures here. Luckily everybody speaks English, so it's not that bad language wise.

When we arrived here the land lady told us that there is only 1 air conditioner in the house (in the living room), and not in the bedrooms. So the rooms would be a little hotter than the living room, or so we thought. Boy were we wrong….. The living room was quite cool, but the bedrooms were hotter than hell it self. Man o man, when I say hot I mean HOT. I couldn't sleep at all, so I had to open the bedroom door just to get some cooler air into the bedroom. This made it a little bearable for us. So we slept a bit (I myself slept for about 3-4 hours).

This was our first day in Osaka. The only thing I hope for now is that those smart Japanese guys can come up with a way to air-condition the whole country and not only the buildings. Altogether it was a nice day though. Osaka is very different from Tokyo, but still very Japanese of course.

Tomorrow: Kyoto and even more heat.