Osaka

A long time ago, I was recounting my spring festival travels and had just left off from Hanoi and was on my way to Osaka. With Osaka, I made the mistake of thinking about Kyoto which is close by but definitely not the same city. Never go to Zhuzhou expecting Shanghai, don't go to Osaka expecting Kyoto. One of my favorite things in Kyoto was all the temples and spaces where you could stop for a bowl of matcha and a sweet. Osaka as a more commercial city wasn't quite the hotspot for temples that I had envisioned and remembered from my week in Japan over the summer. It took me a while to warm up to the city, I guess in part because I don't generally go out much at night for drinks or anything like that. But night was when I learned to really enjoy Osaka for the city it was. I like many things about the historic old capital, but there were ways in which Osaka seemed a little more casual. Also given Kyoto's image and the heritage its trying to protect and live with, I don't imagine the lights and large sea creatures of Dotonbori sitting well with the soft light, lanterns, chirimen, the entrance to Yasaka shrine or the rare geisha sighting of Gion. Lonely Planet said Osaka was great for Blade Runner nights. On nights it rained I certainly thought of Deckard on crowded streets though Osaka nights didn't seem quite as heavy as the constant darkness in Blade Runner. I stayed in a room that was exactly what I needed and no more (which was immensely satisfying) near a part of town called "Shin Sekai", or "New World" in English. More than a few guides I read suggested staying away from that part of town at night as it was full of strange characters. I wandered at night anyway. If I felt uncomfortable about a group of guys hanging around a convenience store, I just stepped away. The oddest person I saw out there was a rather sad looking man in a wedding dress in an arcade filled with mostly closed shops. Out of all the neighborhoods I saw in Osaka, Shin Sekai seemed to be the best place to entertain dystopian ideas.

Built early on in the 1900s, Shin Sekai by the time I arrived in February 2016 was an old idea of a new world. The font alone told me I'd be stepping into a place unlike anything I'd seen while staying around Kyoto's temples. The air was filled with the smell of frying and the signs filled with my favorite characters from both Chinese and Japanese: 烧 and 串. Shao and chuan. Yaki and kushi. However you say it, there's something good waiting on the other side. Surrounded by beer and fried food, clothing shops, t-shirts, and big glowing figures inviting people to walk in. Everything in this neighborhood was in strong contrast with the Japan of kaiseki, tea ceremony, machiya, and grand temples and gardens meant to make statements about the families that lived there or funded them that I knew from Kyoto. In a very narrow okonomiyaki shop, I found a couple who were happy to talk me to while they set up the grill on the counter despite the language barrier. They had an English menu so I can't have been the only person from out of town to stop by, but I couldn't recall anyone in Kyoto who had been so warm with me in the same way as they teased me about coming to Osaka to teach English instead. Though my Japanese is pretty basic, I had the good fortune of being in conversation with two people using a lot of loan words. They laughed at the very assertive way I said "check" as they tried to stop saying "chekku" to mimic me. People were very kind to me in Kyoto too, but I recall more formalities and efficiency than sharing laughs about how I talk. I still can't believe a woman decided to come up and help me when I was lost in Kyoto last year and after feeling a little lost between her limited English and my limited Japanese, we communicated best with each other in Italian.

Classics nerd that I am, I did initially think of taking a day to run back to Kyoto but instead made a day trip to Uji. Uji is suspiciously convenient as a day trip spot when you realize everything is in walking distance from the train station and there are signs everywhere to guide you to the main cultural points of interest. I walked and listened to the Ujigawa rushing by, wondering if the train station was placed where it was because of all the other sites or what might have been built up around the station. But many things in Uji outdate the trains so perhaps I shouldn't have wasted my time on that.

You don't have to go to Uji to hear its name. If you are shopping around for green tea while in Japan, you will see a number of products with origins in Uji and you'll run into a number of tea shops where you try sencha, matcha, gyokuro and other popular green teas and you can try your hand at proper brewing with the help of the staff. It's also the setting for the ending of the Tale of Genji, a part of the book that follows the next generation after Genji's death and there is a small museum where certain scenes are played out with an audio track, lights, and faceless mannequins. 

Statue of Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Tale of Genji, in front of the Ujigawa (Uji River)

There are sections of poetry on the paths as you walk from site to site. From time to time, I thought about how ideal it might be to live in a place with an abundance of tea, sweets, and poetry but I should know better than to judge a place solely by what you find on a short walk from the train station. I almost missed the Ujigami shrine at first, a recognized heritage site. It didn't quite announce itself in any grand way, but I was pleased to see a well-dressed family with a baby who had come to pay a visit and on my way down towards the river, I passed a man and woman who seemed to be in traditional wedding attire coming up towards the shrine. Amazing to think that it still seemed so heavily used after all these centuries. I took a short break for tea and sweets at a small shop near the river and then made my way to Byodoin, a building you can see on the 10 yen coin. Like Genji, this too dates back to Heian Japan and the name "Fujiwara", a large family in the court during that period, made me think of UtaKoi, an anime drawing inspiration from Heian poetry (specifically, the Hyakunin Isshu, a collection of 100 poems a Fujiwara chose to decorate a villa but that a friend of mine has also referred to as a collection of one hit wonders of Heian poetry). The anime went into love stories behind some of the poems (the majority of which were about love) and it seemed especially appropriate to think of all the women in Genjimonogatari or those related to the Hyakunin Isshu on Valentines Day. 

Byodoin, you need to pay extra to see the Buddha statue inside. You can only go with a group at a designated time because of preservation and crowd control needs.

By the time I got to Byodoin, I think I was ready to rest. I liked looking at all the different arhats in the museum but didn't seem to retain much information about why the building was constructed. I also had to hurry a little to make sure I didn't miss my time to go inside the hall. On my way out and back to the train station from Byodoin, I had a brief flashback to Kyoto, mostly from recognizing the tea shops and souvenirs that seem to fill roads leading to especially significant places of culture and tourism. Green tea ice cream was advertised everywhere, small chirimen accessories, tengui...I can't help noticing that in Asia, I seem to accumulate more small souvenirs than I did in Europe. I don't know if its just that I've changed over time or if it isn't also related to cultures where small gifts are a more regular part of relationships and exchange, so there's more of them and they tend to be more appealing because businesses know you'll want something for family, friends, and colleagues. Or maybe my particular aesthetic tastes just lean towards the things I see while traveling in Asia.

I couldn't help noticing one thing during this quick trip to Osaka and that was while I had enjoyed the efficiency and orderliness of Kyoto after getting off a train in Changsha (where a man sang loudly, another man screamed at him and waved threateningly, men smoked between cars, a guy spit on the floor and the railway staff tried to sell things), this time it made me nervous. I was used to people standing right in front of the elevator door and walking straight ahead the minute it opened in China, in Japan I had to consciously remind myself to wait in line and was anxious about committing any number of faux pas and being disrespectful. China is frustrating, but I guess it's also somewhat my comfort zone. Lots of people with things to do, places to go, and no time to wait for you to figure things out and risk getting lost in the billions isn't always the nicest feeling, but at least I knew what to expect there. I had to keep adjusting in Osaka. I left early in the morning thinking about the other side of Japan that I'd been introduced to during my brief stay and how I'd enjoyed it, but I was ready to make my way back to the mainland and for the last few days of my vacation. On to Xi'An.