Oh, Osaka! Castles and Towers and Okonomiyaki!

 Food, Japan, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Oh, Osaka! Castles and Towers and Okonomiyaki!
Nov 022007
 

Today I left fun fun Fukuoka for Osaka. The shinkansen ride took about 2:45, and I got there right at 1:45 p.m.

The way the shinkansen works is that it runs on special tracks designed for high-speed rail. This means that not every station is equipped to handle these trains. So Instead of going to Osaka Station, the shinkansen stops at Shin-Osaka (Shin means ‘new’ in Japanese, by the way. You’ll see a lot of shins in Japan.)

On arrival, I went through my now usual drill whenever I get to a new city in Japan. I get off the train, get out of the way, take my bearings for a few seconds, then start hunting down the information booth, and raid it for maps and pamphlets. I find it’s the most efficient way to find the big sights in a town. I’ll cross-check with guidebook opinions, but I’ll go with the pamphlet’s directions, because Lonely Planet Japan’s directions suck.

The maps of Osaka at the station are great, and they’re free.

Free is good.

The next thing I do when I get to a new town is figure out how I’m going to get to the hotel.

Precisely, how am I going to get out of the station? Most major stations, and even minor ones, have at least 2 and as many as 40 exits.

Yes, 40.

40 exits.

So the exit you pick can become important, because if you choose poorly, you can wind up all turned around and lost. Find the station map, make sure which way North is pointing, then proceed to the exit you need.

Namba Mamba

Shin-Osaka is connected to the subway lines, so it’s not too bad. Follow the subway signs.

It’s kind of far away from my hotel, so I decided to just take subways instead of a cab to the hotel. It might have saved me some time to take a cab, but it’s risky to take cabs in big cities over long distances. Japanese traffic can be horrible, and I didn’t want to risk it.

I got off the subway at Namba station, and promptly got lost. No big surprise there. Prepare to get lost in Japan. It’s just hard to find things sometimes, and it’s oftentimes disorienting. This is why you got the map at the station, anyway. I should have brought a compass. It would have saved me a lot of time.

A nice security guard pointed out the way to go, and I followed it for a bit, then thought I could improve upon it, and got lost again. But this time I knew which way North was, so I figured it out on my own. It took a while, but I found my hotel. It’s the Business Hotel Nissei, and it’s 5,250 yen a night. Dirt cheap, the way I like it. It comes with all the usual amenities, except for Internet.

Ah, well. I’ll survive 2 days without Internet.

I dumped my stuff in the room, which is the tiniest yet– I have to go out into the hallway to change my mind– and made my battle plan. I know I can’t see everything in a city, and if I did, I’d wear myself out and not enjoy it. So I picked today’s and tomorrow’s highlights.

Today I was going to go to Osaka Castle, The Umeda Sky Building Floating Garden Observatory, and wander around Kita Osaka. (Kita is Japanese for North. Another handy word to learn.)

Osaka is broken into 4 districts. Kita (North), Chuo (middle), Minami (South), and the harbor. My goal today was to knock out some sights in Kita and Chuo, and then hit the harbor and Minami on Saturday.

Osaka-jou

Osaka Castle is in Chuo, and it’s very scenic. There’s a lot of hiking involved. I managed to get there just as the sun was starting to set, so I think I got some good shots of the castle. I love the “golden time,” when the sun gets low and the light gets really nice and reddish-orange.

Photos! Outer gate:

Outer Gates

Now some photos of the castle exterior:

Approaching the Castle

Fall colors:

Osaka Castle and Fall Colors

Clouds loom overhead:

Osaka Castle

It looks like someone is climbing outside the guardrail???

Castle Detail

Another angle:

Osaka Castle

Golden light hitting the front of the castle:

Castle Front Bathed in Sunset

I climbed up to the top of the castle, and enjoyed the observation deck. The views from the deck are superb. You can see all of downtown Osaka, and with the late afternoon sun, it was all very beautiful.

Great shot of the castle grounds from the top:

Osaka Skyline

And the Osaka Skyline:

Osaka Skyline

Osaka Skyline

Osaka Skyline

Look, another Ferris wheel!

Osaka Skyline

Osaka Skyline

I went down and took a few pictures of the front of the castle again, bathed in the sunset:

Osaka Castle Facade bathed in Sunset Again

Osaka Castle

On my way out of the castle area, some nice shots:

Osaka Skyline at Sunset

Osaka Skyline at Sunset

I went back down and started walking through the castle park on my way back to the hotel, when I saw a band office. That gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band Office

The fountain in the park was pretty.

Fountain

Longer exposure:

Fountain

I walked a little further and saw some of the city’s homeless population setting up tents for the night in the park.

Kita~~!

I headed back to the hotel to rest a bit, because I had just walked about 3 miles on an empty stomach, and I was out of gas. I got back around 6, slept until 7:30, grabbed a quick shower and headed to The Umeda Sky Building Floating Garden Observatory, which is in Kita Osaka by Osaka Station. The area is called Umeda.

The Sky Building is two office towers joined in the middle up high by a big 4-5 story sqaure, so the building kind of looks like a boxy Arc d’ Triumphe. It’s a bit of hassle to get to the observation area, but worth it. Only downside– I got there after 9 p.m., so everything but the deck was closed. That was kind of a bummer.

In Japan, if a store closes at 5 p.m., you better get your stuff by 4:45 p.m., because at 4:50 p.m., they’ve already got everything covered up. At 5 p.m., the metal shutters go down. So it doesn’t really close at 5 p.m. It closes about 15 minutes before that. That’s been my experience so far.

Either way, I was out of a chance at souvenirs. Even the restaurants had closed. Then again, I’ve never been a big fan of any eating establishments at the top of Tall Buildings or Towers, except for the late Windows on the World at the old World Trade Center in New York. That was an incredible restaurant.

In general, though, the food at the top of buildings whose claim to fame is their tallness isn’t so hot. The Space Needle comes immediately to mind for some reason.

To get to the observation deck, you climb 3 flights of stairs, take a glass elevator for 32 stories, then go up a 4-story glass enclosed escalator (kind of like a habitrail tube), then you climb 2 more flights of stairs, and you’re there.

At night, Osaka is gorgeous. The views from the observation deck took my breath away. Totally worth it. I tried to take some pictures, but they probably didn’t do any justice.

Kita Osaka at Night

Kita Osaka at Night

Kita Osaka at Night

 

Had to crop this one a bit:

Kita Osaka at Night

It’s worth a trip there, if you’re in the area.

Music to My Stomach

By now it’s 9:30 p.m., and I’m weak in the knees with hunger. I’ve been walking all day on not enough food, and I need calories badly. But I don’t want more department store or conbini food. I want real Japanese food. Real Osaka food.

I started hunting, and I finally found a place that serves okonomiyaki. It’s a little tiny restaurant called Melody that has 4 tables and a bar. And it’s almost as big as my hotel room. So it’s a tight fit.

Melody

Everyone says okonomiyaki is “a Japanese pancake.” It is not. It is similar in that it’s made from batter and cooked on a griddle, but that’s all. Okonomiyaki is made with a batter with veggies chopped up in it, then you add toppings. The toppings are where it gets fun. I ordered mine “modern,” which means that you cover it with yakisoba (grillled soba noodles in sauce). Then I added shrimp, mayo (which is standard), bonito (dried fish) flakes, and a sweet sauce.

It was so incredibly good. Ah, man. I’m ruined. I don’t know how I’m going to get an okonomiyaki fix in the U.S. now. Let alone, a good one.

Stomach filled, I headed back to the hotel, and made a quick stop at a conbini on the wayto get some supplies for later. (Okay, snacks.) All of this walking consumes a lot of carbs.

I like to believe that, anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll try to visit the Aquarium at the harbor, maybe Universal Studios Japan if I feel like it, or the ukiyoe museum in Minami, and Dotomburi for dinner in Minami. Reality will probably dictate that I dump USJ, but I’ll try to see some of it. I do want to see the ukiyoe place. Ukiyoe is an old style of depicting nature and people. It was popular in the early-mid 19th century.

Random Stuff: you can get license plates where the letters/numbers in the tag light up at night. Way cool.

Everything closes at 8, 9, or 10. Main sights close at 4, 4:30, 5, or 5:30. They have a quick trigger finger on closing stuff. Seriously quick.

Hotels are stingy with power outlets. Bring a power splitter if you can.

Shopping arcades are awesome, and there are lots of shopping arcades in Osaka. I could really dig living here.

The other big Osaka specialty is takoyaki, which are little fried dough balls with octopus inside. I’m going to try to find some to snack on.

Hiroshima/Fukuoka. Hello Kitty Robot Overlords.

 Japan, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Hiroshima/Fukuoka. Hello Kitty Robot Overlords.
Nov 012007
 

Last night in Hiroshima I tried to do laundry again. It’s not always easy to find a hotel that has coin-operated washers that work. Even though the 5,000-7,000 yen a night business hotels tend to have them, they aren’t always in the best shape.

I give you the hotel I stayed in last night as an example. The washing machine was fine. It did an admirable job of washing. But the dryers were all way too tiny, and either didn’t dry the clothes or just squealed like a pig being stabbed with a rusty icepick.

I asked the clerk if there was a laundromat (they call them “Coin Laundry” in Japan) nearby, and he showed me where one was.

Now, usually when I stay near the station, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s shiny and new, and other times it’s a bit on the older side. Hiroshima has a little of both. Some shiny right next to some not-so-shiny.

The laundromat was a tiny little one with some old machines, and an older couple, who were the owners, working on them.

I asked the man which dryer was the best, and he steered me to the one he just finished repairing. Then I wound up chatting with them in half-Japanese, half-English for the next 45 minutes or so. Turns out they were really nice down-to-earth people. It was a lot of fun talking to them.

Leaving Hiroshima for Fukuoka–Err, I Mean Hakata!

I went back to the hotel, got some sleep, and got up at 8 a.m. to catch my 10 a.m. train to Fukuoka/Hakata. If you want to go to Fukuoka, make sure you tell them you want Hakata Station, not Fukuoka Station. (JR Fukuoka is somewhere in Northern Tohoku, like 1,200 Km away or something.) It was about an hour and a quarter to Fukuoka/Hakata, but much of it was in tunnels, so the scenery wasn’t so hot. No photos.

On the way, I planned my trip to Fukuoka for the day. I didn’t have a whole lot of time, so I went by my usual standbys: a museum, a tall thing with a view, and shopping.

First I headed to the info counter at the station for local brochures and maps. Fukuoka doesn’t really have a “You must do this or you will regret it forever” sort of thing, so it’s pretty much up to you. It is a pretty big city, so there’s a lot of fun things to do. On the downside, there really wasn’t a whole lot worth taking pictures of, either.

I stopped by the hotel to drop off my luggage. Some hotels will let you leave your luggage if you show up before check-in. If not, you can dump it in a locker, but going to the hotel can save you some yen on locker rentals. I found another Comfort Inn, and using my AAA card, I cut the rate down to 5,400 yen. 600 yen is another lunch bento box.

Exploring Hakata and Fukuoka

Then I went to explore Hakata. (Which is what they call this portion of town.) I went to the Hakata Folk Museum and looked at some cool exhibits of daily life in the area over the last 150 or so years. I really like looking at old Meiji, Taisho and Showa period stuff. It’s interesting to see the cultural transformation of Japan from an isolated, almost medieval society into an industrial powerhouse, and how that transformation affected the people of Japan.

They also had this really cool telephone exhibit. When you picked up the receiver, you could hear a couple having a conversation in full-blown Hakata-ben, which is the regional variant of Japanese spoken around here. It was so different from the Japanese I’ve been studying, that couldn’t understand a word, but it was fun, anyway.

On the way out of the Folk Museum, I saw the entrance to Kushida Shrine. I’m all shrine-d out at this point, so I took a few photos and headed on. But it looks like a neat place:

Kushida Shrine in Hakata

I decided to check out Canal City, because I saw some interesting pictures of it somewhere online. It was sort of disappointing. It’s just a mall. Yes, it has some interesting architecture, but in the end it’s still a mall. They did have an amazing arcade there, though.

A few Canal City photos:

Canal City

Canal City

Canal City

The old shopping arcade a block away was much more interesting to me.

Shopping Arcade

I found a store that was selling prints of old Edo– that were printed in the USA. So I didn’t buy any.

I decided to begin my search for Robosquare, which I could not find. The map indicated one place, and it wasn’t there. Nothing but more shopping malls. So I wandered for a bit, saw some scenic canals, and ate my first Mos Burger. It was delicious. The burger is definitely good. So were the fries and onion rings. And the iced cocoa. I love iced cocoa. Japan has some interesting beverages.

Here’s the general vicinity of Mos Burger and the non-existent Robosquare (at least not in this location):

Canals in Fukuoka

Downtown area

By then, it was a little after 3, so I decided to go to the hotel and check in. It’s a VERY nice room for 5,400 yen a night. Seriously, not to sound like a shill or anything, but you should check out the Comfort Inns in Japan. They’re dirt cheap, they have nice amenities, and you can book online pretty easily. They only have one hotel in Tokyo, though, so that’s kind of a bust, but otherwise they’re great. They have hotels all over Japan. (And if you have AAA, you get the 10% discount.)

I have CNN-J on the TV, so I get some English language programming to get a rest. I sacked out until 5, then I went out to see some more sights.

Fukuoka at Night

First I went to Tenjin, the big shopping district, in order to catch a bus to the Fukuoka Tower, the 2nd tallest building/tower thing in Japan. The bus stopped nearby, I got out, and presto! I found Robosquare– 5 miles west of where the map said it was.

A nice lady there showed me a number of very cute robots they had on display.

The first one was Paro, a robot baby seal with fur and those sad seal eyes, and it made cute noises when you petted it. Apparently they use it for therapy for kids, the elderly, and people with mental or emotional problems of one sort or another. It helps people relax. It’s very cute and fluffy. I’m sure if they sold it in the U.S., it would clobber Elmo. (And parents’ wallets, too. Those sensors aren’t free, you know.)

Then I got to play with some of the original Sony Aibos. Cute little robodoggies! It was a lot of fun.

Then she showed me a robot whose name escapes me, but it’s designed to assist the elderly with daily tasks. It doesn’t move much. It’s more like someone to talk to who also handles your e-mail and phone duties… sort of like a robo-secretary, I guess. It was cute.

Then came the robot that had the most personality, but which also scared me a little bit. It was Hello Kitty ROBO. It actually said some funny stuff (all in Japanese, of course), but it was just a little bit creepy, and I never could figure out what you would buy it for. It was more of a toy than a tool. Toys are fine, too, but this one looked pricey.

I thanked the people at Robosquare and left to go to the Fukuoka Tower. It was tall. The views were great, the pictures were difficult to get.

A circular polarizer is a necessity for these kinds of places, and you can’t easily attach them to a compact camera.

Some photos of the Fukuoka skyline at night. Don’t expect too much:

Fukuoka at Night

Fukuoka at Night

Fukuoka at Night

Fukuoka at Night

Fukuoka at Night

Fukuoka at Night

I like photographing Ferris wheels at night. I wish I brought a better camera:

Fukuoka at Night

I made a mad dash back to Tenjin before the department stores closed to find dinner. I love Japanese department stores. They all have such wonderful food in their basements, and you can take it home with you.

After picking up dinner, I took a walk around Tenjin. It’s a lot of fun. It reminds me a bit of Tokyo, only less cold. People are nice and lively, and it feels like a lot of stuff is going on all the time. Tenjin is definitely worth the time, especially in the evening. (But a lot of stores close at 8.) I found my favorite chain in Japan so far– Bic Camera. They have 6 floors of nerd toys. I picked up a camera neck strap, and saw the Epson RD1-s, which is a digital camera that takes Leica M Mount lenses, and is only 240,000 yen (~$2200 US).

I must purge all of my lustful thoughts for a camera I cannot afford.

The best thing I found was on the 6th floor. FFTA-2 for the DS! And a thick as all heck game guide! GET!

I went back to Hakata Station, and my hotel. The station gets depressing at night, because the homeless come in droves to sleep in front of it in the square. It’s a whole different place from the day.

The guidebooks all say that it’s easy to find a yatai (food stall) in Fukuoka, and it’s a thing you should do, but I couldn’t find one tonight. I’ll have to do it some other time. I also didn’t find the good Hakata-style Ramen places, either. I saw a few, but they weren’t the ones I was looking for. That’s something else to save for next time.

Fukuoka looks like a good place to live; the people are nice, the food is good, and there’s normal stuff to do. It may not be a tourist haven, but I was only here for a day, so what do I know? I do like the vibe here.

Anyway, I’m going to get some rest tonight, then I’m off to Osaka tomorrow morning. I’m not sure what I’m doing there yet, but I’ll have 3 hours on the train to figure it out.

After Osaka is _____. I need to fill that in tonight. After _____ is probably Sendai, though, then Tokyo.

_____ is probably Nagano, if I can find a room there.

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