Day 9: 9 April 2009 (Osaka)

LOCATION: OSAKA (UMEDA)
MOOD: PUMPED
LISTENING TO: A. R. RAHMAN FEAT M.I.A. – O SAYA

GRITTY AND GRUNGY, MONDAY TO SUNDAY:

I arrived in Osaka last night via a one hour flight from Fukushima. Osaka Itami airport (the domestic airport servicing the Kansai region) is a clean, efficient operation, and even after I mistakenly walked into the arrival hall without my checked-in luggage (I was just following the stream of businessmen who had gotten off my plane) the staff were nice enough to help me get my bag. I took a bus from the airport to the city centre, from which I took the subway to my hotel.

The bus ride was interesting. Osaka has a skyline to rival Tokyos, and yet the feel of the city felt subtly different, even from inside a bus. Perhaps it was because it was night time and the city was awash in neon, but Osaka felt like it had a much harder edge, a more brash character than Tokyo. This was only confirmed when I got off my bus at the downtown Namba station; I felt like I was in the middle of New York.

Downtown Osaka - this isn't Kansas anymore.

They say that Osaka is the anti-Tokyo, and the differences were apparent from the moment I got down from the bus. The first thing that I noticed was the grit on the streets and the smells. The smells weren't all unpleasant, but it was a striking change from the sterile cleanliness of Tokyo. The streets are a lot dirtier in Osaka, and the infrastructure more run down. Whatever the reason, Osaka definitely has a grungier feel to it.

This initial impression was only confirmed by my ride on the subway and the search for my hotel. I'm staying in a downtown area called Tennouji. The subway station looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years, and a short stroll around the subway looking for my hotel only confirmed the derelict state of this neighbourhood. The people look much more working class than I had seen in Tokyo, but that's probably because I had spent all my time in the shiny up-market spots when I was there.

My hotel is a cheap little place just around the corner from the station (although it took me a few tries to find it), and I was lucky enough to get a single room. It's about the size of a prison cell (no joke), but it has a TV and an air conditioner so I'm not complaining. Communal baths, but what the hell. You get what you pay for. Most importantly for me it's private, so I can come back at night and have a place that's all my own. A week away from home and I'm starting to realise how important that is to me.

I chose not to go out the first night as I didn't really fancy my chances of navigating a new city in the dark, so I stayed in and watched Rush Hour 2 dubbed in Japanese. The scene where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are talking about Snoopy was particularly hillarious.

Don't you EVER touch a Japanese man's TV set!
(Alternate caption: "Do you understand the words that are comin' out of my mouth?"
"Well actually, after five years of studying your language, yes. For the most part.")

ON TOP OF THE WORLD (WELL, AT LEAST THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD):

The first place I visited on my first proper day in Osaka was the Sky Building in Umeda, a futuristic twin-tower complex that houses several businesses and the city's premier observation deck. Apparently locals are sharply divided by its appearance, with some embracing it as futuristic and others lambasting it for the same reason. Perhaps its because I come from a relatively tame city, but it didn't look out of place to me.

Come to think of it, it actually looks kind of cool. Maybe I should get one for my place.

Getting up to the observation is an experience in itself. The Sky Building is around 40 stories tall, and the escalator taking you up to the 39^th floor is encased in glass. I don't usually suffer from it, but I got a pretty severe case of vertigo watching the ground rush away from me. This condition was of course not helped by the fact that this was followed by a glass encased escalator leading from the 39^th floor to the observation decks on the 40-42^nd floors.

DON'T look down. Ok fine, look down, but make sure you take a photo.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the vertigo I was determined to make the most of my time there, so I took a truckload of photos. The views were amazing, and the trip up to the open-air roof area was a bracing experience. As I said before, Osaka's skyline is very impressive. Perhaps a little less so than Tokyo's, but when you compare the relative size of the two cities you can't really complain.

Yeah, making the Melways for this place would SUCK.

You didn't think I would go an entire trip without getting my emo on, did you?

"Someone could throw me off this building and no one would ever know...actually wait a minute, no they couldn't - photographic evidence!'

After the Sky Building I returned to my hotel to recharge my camera battery before heading out to check out the city's two largest bookstores, Kinokuniya and Junkudo. Both had a fairly good selection of books, magazines and educational materials, but I preferred Junkudo because it had places to sit and read (a la Borders). One thing I did notice while strolling the aisles was Japan's current obsession with Obama. The Audacity of Hope, Dreams From My Father and anthologies of his speeches were everywhere, as well as a growing line of 'learn-English-from-the-President's-speeches' books.

The bookstores were however merely a way to kill time. The real reason why I had left Fukushima in such a hurry to get to Osaka was that I had tickets to see my favourite Japanese band, Do As Infinity, live in concert. As I explained before, DAI had broken up shortly before I arrived in Japan last time, and had only just recently reformed. This concert was part of a national tour designed to launch the band back into the public sphere and promote their new single, which hasn't officially been released yet.

Unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures of the actual concert as there was a strict no-camera policy with bag-checks at the door. Hopefully this will suffice:

I also picked up a Do As Infinity scarf. The t-shirts were a little too girly for my taste.

Japanese concerts are strange; perhaps it's because DAI is a mainstream band, but the energy rippling through the crowd was oddly contained and synchronised. There seem to be two main actions; hand clapping and jabbing the air with your finger to the beat. Apart from the odd person jumping up and down, the crowd seemed to respond in unison; it was almost as if the audience was as aware of itself as it was of the performers. I'm guessing that you have to go to the smaller, independent clubs to find any raw, organic energy.

The actual concert itself was a decent effort. The auditorium had good acoustics, but it lacked some of the necessary elements for a truly great concert. Firstly, there was no mosh pit. Come on, how can you have a rock concert without a mosh pit? Secondly, there were no giant screens showing close-ups of the action. This, when combined with the synchronised nature of the crowd response all around you made it a little hard to really get into the music; I felt stuck in the crowd, isolated from the band. However these were all minor transgressions, compensated for by the fact that it was Do As Infinity.