ōsaka : part one.

Despite being so horrendously behind, I am going to attempt to keep things chronological, or I will most likely never return to explain anything. Therefore, we will begin with Ōsaka! I had been looking forward to this trip for weeks and weeks – not only was it my first time venturing out of Gifu or Nagoya, but I was also going to meet two of my favourite people. I only arrived on Friday evening, but after much shrieking, hugging and jumping, we managed to get out to see a little of the town.

We started going out by going for a wander, but were so enthralled by the sight of the Umeda Sky Building we couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

As the light left the sky we zipped up in glass elevators and through fluorescent passages, until we reached the top.

The view was stunning. Viewing the city from a height, with all the lights, and the Yodo River running through, it somehow felt very Parisian (probably helped along by the romantic nature of the observatory).

 

As it got darker, the lights from the city became more vibrant, although I was a little too distracted by the party going on with my outfit. 

We were all a little tired from travelling so called a fairly early night. The next day the weather looked intimidating, but we headed out enthusiastically for Ōsaka-jō. We just managed to beat the rain.

In the afternoon, we split for a little, with Georgie wanting to experience an onsen, and Natalie choosing to give it a miss. After, we met again to head into Namba for some shopping, but, with soaking clothes and tired feet, eventually finding refuge in a little coffee shop. I am very sad to say that the coffee I braved was the worst six dollar coffee I have ever purchased, but fortunately the company made up for the coffee’s failings.

I will save the evening’s shenanigans for Ōsaka : part two, the release of which can be expected in the next day or two!

apology.

It has been an entire week since I blogged, and truly, I feel bad about it. I had every intention of blogging tonight about my weekend in Osaka, but then I remembered an essay I have to submit tomorrow before I trot along to Tokyo for the weekend. I will try to at least put up a few photos tomorrow before I head off so that you are not inundated with blog posts from me next week (I have almost no plans so will probably be blogging every second day). Sorry for being a terrible friend! This isn't even a long apology post!

biiru.

I have actually just had a pretty poor week (due to a number of factors, including but not limited to the fact my local vending machine is out of Coke Zero), so today I thought I would catch you up on some fun times from a couple of weeks ago I never got the time to write about. So a while back, Orie invited Corey, Cheyenne and I around to her apartment, with the express purpose of drinking beer. The really confusing part of this was that none of us like beer, however, Orie has a strange belief that if you try enough different beers, you will grow to like it. Why, I know not, but out of love for Orie we agreed to give it a go.

In the end we bought something like sixteen cans of beer to try. We weren’t really consuming that much alcohol since we were only tasting each kind, so we had expected to finish our beer tasting in the one night. However, after struggling through six, we were unable to continue, so had to split our beer tasting over two nights. Having suffered through sixteen types of beer, I did have to admit that, whilst I still would not actively choose beer to drink, Orie’s system was somewhat correct. I think that perhaps I am a little more tolerant of the taste of beer than I was previously. Through the process I also realised that tomato beer is very, very strange.

Orie even made a final, surprise, gravity-defying beer (apple jelly, but the resemblance was uncanny), which was without a doubt my favourite beer of the night!

Who knows, perhaps one day I will be a beer-drinker! Or, perhaps it was just the good company that dulled my aversion to the beer.

sayounara jitensha.

Last night I had such an adventure (not a good one this time). I went to karaoke with some pals, and all was good until we left. It was midnight, some friends were kicking on but I was going to head home since I was tired. We spilled out of the karaoke place and I headed to where I had left my bike whilst rummaging through my bag for my keys. Those who have seen the disarray of my bag would know how awful it can be, so it can take me a good while to find my keys. Last night, however, something was different – my keys were, in fact, not in my bag. This meant I had either lost them or left them on my bike (you need a key to use your bike). Unfortunately the truth became evident when I looked around and realised my bicycle was nowhere to be seen.

Whilst this entire situation was entirely my fault, it was also fairly bad luck. I have never before left my keys on my bike, whilst friends have done so on multiple occasions with no repercussions. Japan is notoriously safe and many people in the past 24 hours have told me this is the first time they have heard of a bike being stolen.

In any case, my pal Kengo proceeded to take me to the police station to report my bike was missing. Two people sat and spoke to Kengo and I for a good hour about the matter, asking minute details about the situation, including but not limited to the nature of the bicycle, where it was left, the direction in which it was facing when I left it, and what my keys looked like (I was required to draw a picture for the final point). The whole thing seemed more reminiscent of a missing person’s report than a stolen bicycle.

The real low point came when we reached the paperwork I was required to fill out. The first line was my address. I carry a copy of my address with me on the back on my resident’s card, scrawled by a Japanese person at city hall in the smallest kanji I have ever seen and about 14 or 15 kanji. “Can you write it?” I was asked. “I can not.” “Perhaps if you practice first”, I was urged. Feeling troublesome, I began painstakingly attempting to copy out the kanji, looking to Kengo for affirmation. Ten minutes and two and a half kanji later, it was deemed acceptable for me to write my address in English instead. I stamped everything with a finger print feeling like a criminal, since I didn’t have my inkan with me. Eventually at around 2am we made it out and headed back to the university where Julie had been waiting up to give me the master key so that I could at least access my room.

Really it was not so bad; I don’t know how long I will be without a bike for and I will have to pay for my room lock to be changed and for a new bicycle, which will not be cheap, but these things happen. Mostly I feel so bad for the people who had to help me last night, particularly Kengo. I feel as though so many of my posts I end by saying how grateful I am to various people, but here is another. Being in Japan, I have learnt so much about the value of generosity, and how greatly appreciated it can be by a lost soul with a stolen bicycle. Thank you Kengo!

gujo.

As aforementioned, on the weekend I went to Gujo! I went with a strange mix of Japanese, Chinese, American, French, and German people. Heading to Gujo was incredible; I was so stunned by the scenery we drove through. I know that this will reveal my absolute ignorance of Japan, but I had no idea that there were areas that beautiful here, I felt as though I were in the middle of New Zealand or maybe Europe somewhere. The whole car trip, every corner we turned I would exclaim “Oh my goodness! Its beautiful!” In any case, I feel as though the photos below do not do the beauty of Gujo justice, it was impossible for me to capture its vastness on film. I won’t write a lot about Saturday since the pictures explain most things anyway.

On Sunday morning we rose early to climb a mountain. It certainly made me realise that if I wish to climb Mount Fuji whist here I am going to have to do some more training, if I were to attempt it tomorrow I think I would suffer heart failure.

There is an excellent feeling to bagging a mountain (if you can call my leisurely wander up a hill that). Since there were so many trees, the view from the top was still a little obstructed, but the overwhelming impression was of tree-covered mountains. Everywhere.

We slipped and slid down to the bottom of the mountain where we had a lot of fun playing around near a stream until the first leech was spotted and we all decided it was a good time to run home.

The rest of the day was spent wandering in the town of Gujo. Henry was desperate to jump off the bridge, and whilst that would usually be right up my alley, I was feeling unusually sensible and gave it a pass so poor Henry was on his own.

On the way back we stopped at an onsen, which was my first time. Although I think I managed not to look like an absolute moron, I was still told by my friends I must have done it all wrong since I ended up feeling exhilarated rather than lethargic. After, I headed back to Gifu with the cool cats.

It was such a nice weekend, I feel so indebted to the people who organised all of it and were so kind to me. Without them I never would have had access to those areas or experiences. Thank you!