Laundry! Hallelujah! I quickly assembled my dirty clothing and stuffed it into the laundry bag. I was down to my last shirt. Thankfully the weather had cooled dramatically since arriving in Osaka, a pleasant 25 degrees (or thereabouts). Since my 'walking shoes' were soaked from yesterday's trip I was forced into my Jack Purcell. My poor feet. Breakfast was provided at this place, I'm still no totally used to having meat other than bacon (I know, could I have picked a lighter meat?) for breakfast. Considering that I've been on a Weetbix diet for majority of my life eating salted salmon and fried noodles for breakfast was a tad on the heavy side. I dumped my laundry off at the counter and we were off to get a train to Nara.
Shin Osaka station was playing some mean tricks on us. I didn't bring it up in the previous post because we were new there, ironically we were still getting lost. This brought up a suggestion that the station was "dynamic" and kept "morphing" on us. Either way, we were not at all becoming familiar with Shin Osaka Station. We got to the platform and after much debate realised we had just missed the train to Nara, 40 minutes till the next train. Frick! Thankfully we had come early enough to be waiting on the platform to indulge ourselves in Osaka eye candy (ie, the female Japanese Population). Big two thumbs up there! My partner aka Barfmaster aka high standards also agreed.
Getting off at Nara JR we navigated ourselves to the TIC to get insight on the sights of Nara. Our first stop was however a work colleague suggestion of Korean food. We didn't have the name nor the address to the place. Our only information was:
- Walk down the main street, you will pass Hotel Fujita Nara.
- Keep walking until you see a MOS burger.
- Take the first left after MOS Burger and the restaurant will be there.
3 easy steps, we were ready to go, like a pirates with a treasure map. Hotel Fujita Nara, sweet we were in the right direction. MOS burger! First left and it should be right here. We initially passed it and walked probably 100 metres before one of us suggested we had "gone too far". Take 2, back to MOS, first left. The five minute conversation that took place outside the restaurant had dialogue similar to this "Is this it? That doesn't look Korean. Maybe it closed down. F*** it, let's just eat here". Thankfully we had found it. I grabbed some Bim Bi Baeb, was tasty, not worth the travel around the world but hey! At least we can say we ate Korean food in Japan. For future reference the place is called Mikakutei Sayaka.
First stop after lunch time was Todai-ji temple, stacks of school kids, and international tourists. The temple housed a huge Buddha inside. w00t!
First stop after lunch time was Todai-ji temple, stacks of school kids, and international tourists. The temple housed a huge Buddha inside. w00t!
Spent a reasonable amount of time trying to find some garden, no dice. We couldn't not find this garden, "The map says it should be right here!". Last stop was Kasuga Taisha another world heritage site. Nice, huge gardens, nothing spectacular but very pleasant. Again I reiterate my point of it being SO much better in another season of the year.
3:00 pm Nara was done, checked off the main tourist sights and 
found the Korean restaurant. Home time (home being Osaka). We walked down from Kasuga Taisha and popped into a delightful Okinimiyaki joint. The lady seated us in front of a dark, well-used hot plate, the lady took our orders and proceeded to fire up the grill. Oh baby, hands on action! Oh so tasty! The food was great! I would recommend people to come here and eat. Although given that Ive only indulged myself twice in this Japanese specialty I'm probably not the most experienced person to be making these cries of kudos.
found the Korean restaurant. Home time (home being Osaka). We walked down from Kasuga Taisha and popped into a delightful Okinimiyaki joint. The lady seated us in front of a dark, well-used hot plate, the lady took our orders and proceeded to fire up the grill. Oh baby, hands on action! Oh so tasty! The food was great! I would recommend people to come here and eat. Although given that Ive only indulged myself twice in this Japanese specialty I'm probably not the most experienced person to be making these cries of kudos.6:00 pm: Got back to the hotel had a quick shower and soon we were off to check out one of Osaka's hot spots. Dotombori! Following the map we hit the main strip of Dotombori. Quite simple amazing, Neon lights, amazingly gorgeous women and heaps of people! We stood in awe, mouths open, senses overload. Welcome to Japan!Once again we were given more eating location instructions, this time they we rent so comprehensive. "If you see a giant crab on the main street, take a left and there's an all you can eat sushi joint for around 8 bucks". Sweet! There was one problem, Osaka had a MILLION (Ok, maybe 3) giant crabs!
Osaka, 5th of July 2007. I had to make note of this day, for this is the time and place I found my internal "Happy Place". The concept works as follows, it's the place or time where youve experience a heighten state of happiness. Ok that's lame, but it's supposed to be the mental state achieved when you think about a moment in time when you want to detach oneself from the unpleasant or uncomfortble.
The factors so possibly simple yet together made me forget about everything negative in the world and in my life. Call me simple, call me naive heck, call me a hopeless romantic. But for those 5 minutes it was perfect. This particular moment rates as one of the top highlights of the trip. Let me set the scenario. Still stunned by the aura that was Dotombori we had failed to find the all you can eat sushi. Even though we had snacked rather late in the afternoon we were starting to get hungry. We passed a heavily populate ramen store but it was too crowded, we took to the adjacent store which had the vending machine style ordering system. Pick a number, pay, receive a ticket, show ticket to restaurant staff and take a seat. Simple.
The restaurant was small, capable of seating more than 10 people at any given time. Each member greeted us in unison, we took our seats at the bar facing the kitchen area. Very cosy. Oh it felt so good to get off our feet. Tucking our bags under the bar we sat there. To our left were a couple of locals tucking into steaming bowls of ramen, to the right the crowded main strip of Dotombori. In front of us the chef hurried to make our meal, we could see every action, he boiled the noodles, added the spices and sauces, ladled the broth, fried rice, garnished all in front of us. It was so methodical for him yet he made it look like an art.
The restaurant was small, capable of seating more than 10 people at any given time. Each member greeted us in unison, we took our seats at the bar facing the kitchen area. Very cosy. Oh it felt so good to get off our feet. Tucking our bags under the bar we sat there. To our left were a couple of locals tucking into steaming bowls of ramen, to the right the crowded main strip of Dotombori. In front of us the chef hurried to make our meal, we could see every action, he boiled the noodles, added the spices and sauces, ladled the broth, fried rice, garnished all in front of us. It was so methodical for him yet he made it look like an art.
He passed us two hot bowls of ramen over the counter and wished us to enjoy our meal. It looked as good as it tasted. Then the icing on the cake, just after I had started my meal the restaurant started to play one of my old time favourite songs. Bobby McFerrin's, "Dont Worry, Be Happy" played. I immediately stopped eating and absorbed in that moment. It was so ideal, so appropriate, so perfect, so good! It was my new happy place. Great food, great location, great music and great company. That was it, all my senses, thoughts, emotions satisfied in one moment in time.
It would also be the night that we would run into some interesting characters. Bridge boys was the moniker we had aptly chosen. The reason was simple, bunch of boys hanging out on the bridges of Dotombori. We would later see them in Tokyo but what their activities were eluded us the entire trip.
