The Mad Dash to Osaka

Last week I received an unexpected message from a friend in Melbourne, who was about to depart for Seoul, and coming to Osaka a few days after that. The long weekend was approaching, and I'd originally wanted to go away somewhere, but had had to cancel those plans when one of my students entered a speech contest being held on the Saturday. My mate Ant and his friends were landing in Osaka on Sunday afternoon, and were keen to catch up for drinks. Osaka is a 45 minute shinkansen (bullet train) from Okayama Station (on the San-yo line, if anyone is interested) so it was an extremely tempting offer. 

However, there was the small, concerning issue of the impending Typhoon Talim, which was scheduled to hit mainland Japan on Sunday morning. The gale force winds and torrential rainfall were expected to sweep up the country, disrupting public transport services all over the shop. I wasn't even sure Ant's flight would be able to land at Kansai Airport; we were worried their flight might be cancelled last minute. We kept an eye on the meteorological developments as the days progressed, but I didn't book tickets because it was looking likely that the whole thing wasn't even going to be possible.

Saturday's speech contest in Okayama City came and went. My student from Yakage High School did an absolutely amazing job. She was incredibly nervous the day before; we arranged a meeting after school to practise together and gave her some tips and advice on audience engagement and presentation style, etc. She was working very hard on memorising her speech, and the cost of that was being able to deliver her speech animatedly. We were concerned, but it turns out we needn't have been. She was fantastic. She didn't make any mistakes, she looked comfortable and smiled a lot, and the audience chuckled sometimes - hers was the only speech that inspired a response from the audience. It helped that she's just about the cutest little button I've ever met. Her face evokes the same 'aww' feeling as bunnies and puppies. She didn't make it through preliminaries, but I am so, so proud of her for even wanting to give it a go. She was competing against some extremely high achieving academic schools, and she nailed it.

My supervisor from Yakage and I suddenly had a free afternoon, so we were headed into Okayama City when we stumbled upon a tiny home that had been converted into an okonomiyaki (Japanese savoury pancake) restaurant, operated by the nicest little old couple. The entire place consisted of two low tables on a raised tatami level, where customers sat cross-legged on flat cushions, and a small bar that could seat about four. Behind the bar was the hot plate where Grandma cooked the okonomiyaki, a shelf of Japanese sake bottles, and an old TV set to a channel for midday viewing. When we arrived it was playing a Japanese comedy game show. When we left it was playing the Japanese equivalent of Getaway. We were welcomed in warmly and ushered to one of the low tables, where we sat and ate the most enormous home-made okonomiyaki I've ever seen, drank beer and sake at midday, and (in my case) snoozed and chatted with our hosts. It was utterly delightful and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Lunch with my supervisor at Yakage Town.

Sunday morning dawned astonishingly beautiful. Blue skies, fluffy white clouds. Confused, I checked the weather forecast. Unfortunately Talim had not disappeared, but his scheduled arrival had been pushed back to the evening. My supervisor helped me check whether the shinkansen and local lines were operating (they were), and I checked in with Ant & co., who were on track to board their flight. All of a sudden it was definitely still possible, but there was only a small window of opportunity for me to make it to Osaka before the train lines stopped operating at lunch time. I decided to risk it. I rode like a demon on my flat-tired bike (so it was very difficult and slightly painful) to the station, threw some money at my friends who work the bike parking lot, and literally ran to make one of the last trains out. I was on the 12:12; the trains stopped around 12:45. Cut it a little too close for comfort.

Luckily, the shinkansen was largely still in operation when I arrived in Okayama City. Since I left late morning the bullet trains connecting Honshu and Kyushu had stopped, which meant the storm was creeping swiftly up the mainland from the southwest. I was heading east towards Osaka, and the storm was crawling east behind me. So it really was quite an adrenaline-filled race against the storm. I came out victorious, though. The shinkansen whisked me away, and I arrived safely at Shin-Osaka station 45 minutes and 2 stops later, where the sky was deceptively beautiful still. Ant & co. were due to arrive around an hour or so later, so I killed time hanging around Osaka Station's Daimaru department store. Anyone who has been to Osaka will already know where this is going. Hint: Osaka's Pokemon Center is on the tenth floor.

Far too much money later, I caught the train to Namba, changed to the Sennichimae line, and hopped over to Sakuragawa station, where I met Ant & co. (and suitcases) about ten minutes later. We really could not have timed it better. It was late afternoon and the boys were knackered, so we adventured on foot until we found their Air B'n'B, hung out there for a while so they could all freshen up and change clothes, then stashed our windbreakers in a couple of backpacks (the extent of our typhoon preparation) and hit the Dotombori area for some celebratory Osakan street food and beverages. Photo dump alert. 

We were keen to try some recommended spots, so we started out with one of theculturetrip.com's (click me!) top ten restaurants for foodies looking for some top-notch local specialities (read: okonomiyaki and takoyaki). Creo-Ru didn't disappoint, either. It's smack in the middle of Dotombori, so you have an excellent stroll through the famously oversized crab and sushi decorations adorning the shopfronts, basking in the busy buzz of all the people on dinner missions. Atmospheric. 

For scale.

We were greeted by a ludicrously cheerful dude who impersonated an assortment of Australian animals before welcoming us inside, where we met his polar opposite: a perpetually grump-faced older lady who clearly hated a) her job and b) the constant influx of foreign visitors, and who showed us to our table. It was one of those cool Japanese systems where you order everything you want from an iPad. It's literally like online shopping. You browse the catalogue, add the items you want to your basket, and send your order to the kitchen by "checking out" and confirming your order. The wait staff bring your food as its ready, and you pay at the end. You even order all your drinks this way, which is how we totally underestimated the size of the large beer.

iPad order system.

Lol so many cameras. Cheers.

Takoyaki

Kushikatsu

Always more questions, Japan...

Okonomiyaki

A veritable feast (four different styles of okonomiyaki, twelve takoyaki, a huge kushikatsu - skewered meat and vegetables, battered and fried - platter and several drinks to kick start the night) later, it was off to visit Bar Moon Walk, a 200 yen bar the boys liked, where they hoped to recreate a photo snapped 5 years ago. First we took a quick detour to Family Mart for ice cream, because ice cream. Then Talim decided to hit. And boy did he hit hard. One minute it was a cheery pleasant evening, the next the rain was absolutely thundering down - with force. Those drops hit like bullets. We were half soaked literally within seconds, so we ducked under an awning and into an arcade to gather amongst a crowd of probably a hundred or so people and marvel/mourn the weather. The pre-packed windbreakers actually proved to be a god-send; we yanked them on and dashed back out into the fray to make the five minute journey to Bar Moon Walk. Running in the typhoon rain was actually fun and kind of exciting. 

Drinkable ice cream... a milkshake, basically.

Famous Glico "Running Man" neon billboard.

Bam. Typhoon.

But not quite as exciting as the unbelievably enormous menu of cocktails at Bar Moon Walk (that sweet segue). It's a tiny hole-in-the-wall sort of place, with a 400 yen (~$4) per head cover charge, but after that, the entire menu (over two hundred items, easily) is 200 yen (~$2) per drink. Granted, the serving sizes are noticeably smaller than in Australia, but it's still astounding value for money. We probably had three or four rounds, and each time we tried something different. We asked for heaps of the house specials and recommendations, which was fun. I had a lot of fruity things. One was peach flavoured. One was called "Ramune", which was a mix of banana liqueur, Blue Curacao and ginger ale. Can confirm, did taste exactly like Ramune (a fizzy Japanese soft drink). We tried some that tasted like oolong tea, blueberry yoghurt, matcha (milky, sweet green tea) - the options were insane. So that place was fun. Unfortunately one of the guys who had worked there when the boys last visited had moved on (fair enough; it was five years ago), but some of the others were pretty floored that Ant & co. had come back again, and were happy to snap a new photo. 

Cheers the Second.

New friends!

And it turned out the guy who'd left had opened his own bar a short walk away. So naturally it meant we next had to go and check his bar out, too. I can't remember the name of his place, but it was inside a multi-storey building, where we had to take the elevator up a few floors. It opened into a long, narrow corridor literally lined with tiny bars and lounges, each one seating maybe a dozen people and hidden away behind a single, noise-blocking door. Amazingly, the corridor was pretty much silent. I'm confident each of those bars was as rowdy as ours ended up being. The vibe was totally different in this one - he'd opted for the laid back, beachy vibe - but it was clearly a pretty popular place, as there were other people popping in and out the entire time we were there. The guy was fun and a bit of a sucker for the spotlight, but unfortunately he had zero recollection of the boys' photo ever being taken. He was cool though; he's crazy skilled at flipping bottles around and put on an awesome show for his patrons. At one point he had us clapping along to that Crazy Frog song and chanting for him while he magically poured a colour-changing beverage into six tall shot flutes. We nearly lost our minds when each shot was somehow a different colour and they'd all been poured from the same shaker. The whole night was pretty rad, really. 

Magic is real.

After a midnight visit to Yoshinoya (a fast food restaurant in Japan that specialises in cheap curries and rice bowls - kind of their equivalent to McDonald's) for a pit stop, we called it a night and made our way back to the boys' Air B'n'B. It was 3am by the time we traipsed in, and they were complete legends and let me crash on their fold out couch. The next morning was a slow, relaxed affair, and I ended up catching the shinkansen home just after lunch time. It was an extremely delightful short trip away, and I had the best time hanging out with the guys. I'd previously had serious beef with Osaka thanks to three unpleasant visits, but it has redeemed itself and now I'm very hype to return again soon. More to come! x

Thanks for visiting, friend!