Well, hi!
Exactly nine years and eleven months after my first visit to Japan, I am back.
We arrived in Japan yesterday after a pretty great - and quick - couple of flights from Perth to Osaka via Singapore. Watched a bunch of movies on the plane and slept for about three hours in the whole 20 hour trip, but arrived feeling pretty good. On the first day we wandered around Osaka Station, awaiting 3pm when we could check in to our Airbnb. We spent about an hour trying to find, and then use, available luggage lockers before eventually deciding to give up once we realised we would have to buy a local version of a smartrider to use the ones that were big enough for our bags - not exactly tourist friendly. However there was a very kindly local man who stopped us, directed us to a larger group of lockers and gave us some maps before telling us many times to have a good day. Very sweet. By then it was lunch time anyway so we found ourselves a little cafe near the station and had lunch, slowly, before making our way to the JR Line (for which we have rail passes) and catching the Osaka Loop line back to Shin-imamiya. Shin-imamiya is a station about a twenty minute walk from our accommodation but it's easy enough to get to with the help of google so we chose to walk (and kill some more time) rather than take a different train line to our accommodation.
Our Airbnb is ADORABLE. It's blue, for starters, which makes it stand out among the other little houses in our area. We are in a clearly residential area which is quiet, interesting and very lovely. Lots of nods and smiles from the locals as we walked along the streets, and one man stopped us to ask what a poorly written English sign meant (we weren't sure, it was quite confusing). Lots of cyclists, lots of well-dressed locals, a shopping street with some cute little cafes and some of the local specialty - Takoyaki - which I adore.
We checked in via a little tablet thingy which required photos of our passports that were then matched to photos of our face via facial recognition software. In mid-2018, Japan cancelled all unlicensed Airbnb bookings under a new law they brought in. Airbnb owners now need copies of passports as part of the law, so it's pretty well managed. Ours also has a sound monitor to make sure we don't have any loud parties - wish Australia had had those when people in my apartment complex were partying!
So, we settled in, showered, unpacked, bought some breakfast supplies at the local supermarket and then in the evening ventured into our local area for a wander, stumbling across a Japanese BBQ restaurant (one of those ones with a BBQ in the middle of the table upon which you cook your own food). It was VERY good; we ate tongue, diaphragm, and the other thing we pointed at ("calvi", no idea what it was).
Today we slept in very late, in recovery mode. We ate our yoghurt and fruit breakfast along with the other things we randomly bought. We had two things we thought were coconut but one turned out to be something gross, and the other was some kind of pickled vegetable which was nice, but was NOT coconut.
We left the house around 1pm and headed for Osaka castle, which was built in 1583 by Totoyami Hideyoshi, the shogun who united Japan through a lot of very clever political and strategic military actions (one interesting conquest involved flooding an enemy castle). There was a lovely walk to the castle through a park, (with a minor detour to eat some very good donuts and bread/cheese/honey). Inside the castle was a museum that centred on the life of Hideyoshi. I thought he sounded pretty cool until it got to the part about committing genocide in Korea and then, at age 57 when his first biological son was born, he murdered 30 other people who could have arguably been in line for his son's inheritance, including mistresses and adopted children.
Anyway, Hideyoshi died 6 years later, his son succeeded him but later lost the castle to a traitor during the Osaka Summer War and committed suicide along with his mother (who had been Hideyoshi's concubine), so the whole family was therefore kaput. Nice job, bet you're glad you killed those thirty other people eh Hideyo?
We ended up spending about three hours at the castle and by then it was getting dark. So, on to Dotonbori, the tourist-centric nightlife district. We had a really fantastic dinner there after wandering around and looking at the various lights, restaurants, clubs and whatnot.
And now we are home again, looking up stuff to do tomorrow, chilling out and drinking the most AWFUL smelling Chilean wine which somehow manages to taste perfectly fine.
Ok, I'm shattered. I know this isn't the usual flowery fancy Karatrail post but I'm waaaaay too tired so this is what you get.
Exactly nine years and eleven months after my first visit to Japan, I am back.
We arrived in Japan yesterday after a pretty great - and quick - couple of flights from Perth to Osaka via Singapore. Watched a bunch of movies on the plane and slept for about three hours in the whole 20 hour trip, but arrived feeling pretty good. On the first day we wandered around Osaka Station, awaiting 3pm when we could check in to our Airbnb. We spent about an hour trying to find, and then use, available luggage lockers before eventually deciding to give up once we realised we would have to buy a local version of a smartrider to use the ones that were big enough for our bags - not exactly tourist friendly. However there was a very kindly local man who stopped us, directed us to a larger group of lockers and gave us some maps before telling us many times to have a good day. Very sweet. By then it was lunch time anyway so we found ourselves a little cafe near the station and had lunch, slowly, before making our way to the JR Line (for which we have rail passes) and catching the Osaka Loop line back to Shin-imamiya. Shin-imamiya is a station about a twenty minute walk from our accommodation but it's easy enough to get to with the help of google so we chose to walk (and kill some more time) rather than take a different train line to our accommodation.
Our Airbnb is ADORABLE. It's blue, for starters, which makes it stand out among the other little houses in our area. We are in a clearly residential area which is quiet, interesting and very lovely. Lots of nods and smiles from the locals as we walked along the streets, and one man stopped us to ask what a poorly written English sign meant (we weren't sure, it was quite confusing). Lots of cyclists, lots of well-dressed locals, a shopping street with some cute little cafes and some of the local specialty - Takoyaki - which I adore.
We checked in via a little tablet thingy which required photos of our passports that were then matched to photos of our face via facial recognition software. In mid-2018, Japan cancelled all unlicensed Airbnb bookings under a new law they brought in. Airbnb owners now need copies of passports as part of the law, so it's pretty well managed. Ours also has a sound monitor to make sure we don't have any loud parties - wish Australia had had those when people in my apartment complex were partying!
So, we settled in, showered, unpacked, bought some breakfast supplies at the local supermarket and then in the evening ventured into our local area for a wander, stumbling across a Japanese BBQ restaurant (one of those ones with a BBQ in the middle of the table upon which you cook your own food). It was VERY good; we ate tongue, diaphragm, and the other thing we pointed at ("calvi", no idea what it was).
Today we slept in very late, in recovery mode. We ate our yoghurt and fruit breakfast along with the other things we randomly bought. We had two things we thought were coconut but one turned out to be something gross, and the other was some kind of pickled vegetable which was nice, but was NOT coconut.
We left the house around 1pm and headed for Osaka castle, which was built in 1583 by Totoyami Hideyoshi, the shogun who united Japan through a lot of very clever political and strategic military actions (one interesting conquest involved flooding an enemy castle). There was a lovely walk to the castle through a park, (with a minor detour to eat some very good donuts and bread/cheese/honey). Inside the castle was a museum that centred on the life of Hideyoshi. I thought he sounded pretty cool until it got to the part about committing genocide in Korea and then, at age 57 when his first biological son was born, he murdered 30 other people who could have arguably been in line for his son's inheritance, including mistresses and adopted children.
Anyway, Hideyoshi died 6 years later, his son succeeded him but later lost the castle to a traitor during the Osaka Summer War and committed suicide along with his mother (who had been Hideyoshi's concubine), so the whole family was therefore kaput. Nice job, bet you're glad you killed those thirty other people eh Hideyo?
We ended up spending about three hours at the castle and by then it was getting dark. So, on to Dotonbori, the tourist-centric nightlife district. We had a really fantastic dinner there after wandering around and looking at the various lights, restaurants, clubs and whatnot.
And now we are home again, looking up stuff to do tomorrow, chilling out and drinking the most AWFUL smelling Chilean wine which somehow manages to taste perfectly fine.
Ok, I'm shattered. I know this isn't the usual flowery fancy Karatrail post but I'm waaaaay too tired so this is what you get.
Oyasuminasai! (Goodnight)
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