Osaka, Japan: Japanese Nerds are a Special Breed

My trip to Japan didn’t end in Kyoto, I also was fortunate enough to take in Osaka for a few days. The closest I had gotten to Osaka in the past was owning one of those Superdry Osaka t-shirts that everyone had in the late 00s. Why were they so popular? Were Japanese people wearing t-shirts with Bradford emblazoned on them? I didn’t see any while I was there.

The train didn’t take too long and I was out sightseeing before lunch. First stop, the Shitenno-ji Temple. It’s the first official temple ever built in all of Japan dating back to 593. And it seemed that they were still building it.

Those scaffolders didn’t take the Zen vibe into consideration much. I think even Gautama Buddha would have lost his rag trying to meditate during that racket.

It looked better from this angle.

Onto the next quieter sightseeing destination, and I ended up at the Namba Yasaka Shrine. Some say it’s a huge lion’s head, others say it’s a demon’s head. All I know is that it’s too big for my apartment. It’s actually a platform where they stage performances. It’s over the top and tacky, but that’s Japan. I liked it.

Next on the agenda – Nipponbashi. It’s a shopping district popular with “otaku” (people who are fond of anime, manga, video games, and such collectables) or “nerds” to most normal folk. I walked around wide-eyed. What happened to Japan? The men have gone from samurai warriors and kamikaze pilots to socially inept men who fall in love with a pillow. 

OK, maybe that’s a huge generalization, but these people exist in large numbers. I wandered the streets questioning how anyone could be interested in such things.

I found a retro gaming shop. It was the one shop that I genuinely enjoyed looking around, I suppose it was nostalgia more than anything. Entire walls of SNESs, Nintendo 64s, PS1s, Gamecubes, Sega Mega Drives, Dreamcasts, games and memorabilia. Maybe, just maybe my inner otaku came out a little.

In the evening I looked around the areas of Shinsekai and Dontonbori.

Dinner, a little sake, a few beers, and then bed was the plan. I ended up meeting these two fun guys, Justin and Aaron. They were fun in the “we love Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli” sort of way.

Justin, a professional dancer, and Aaron, a naval officer (the two gayest professions after rent boy) had the audacity to ask me, one of the butchest men wearing a pink t-shirt, if I was gay. You can imagine my horror.

They were both staying at a Japanese pod/capsule hotel nearby. Maybe it was a subconscious decision, fitting into tight spaces.

We were a Brit, an Aussie, and a Yank drinking in Osaka. It sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke, but it turned out to a great night and I got to bed at 5am. My own bed. I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk.

The next morning, after shaking off the hangover, I took a wander over to Osaka Castle. Probably Osaka’s most famous site. It played a major role in the unification of Japan during the 16^th century. This blog is not only homophobic, but also informative.

I flew home the next day. I like Japan.

Kyoto, Japan: Temple, Shrine, Temple, Shrine...

I recently went to Japan as we had an extended break at work. Having been in Korea for two-and-a-half years, I kept on thinking I should take advantage of living so close to The Land of the Rising Sun. It’s only an hour flight from Seoul. After being lied to by the check-in lady and laughed at by the man at immigration I made it to Kyoto and dropped my bags off at my hostel.

My first stop was at the Yasaka Shrine (founded 656), I hadn’t planned on visiting this place, but as it was at the end of my street it would have been rude not to.

The shrine accommodated a main gate, a stage, many statues and, of course, a crab stick stall. All other shrines I visited didn’t have a crab stick stall and thus failed to compare.

Soon after, I headed south to the Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddist Temple (founded in 778, with the current buildings built in 1633). All of the buildings in the complex are assembled without a single nail. You can tell an Irishman wasn’t assigned to that particular job.

I made my way further south to the Fushimi Inari-taisha. This is a compound of shrines all connected by trails. Along the trails you walk through thousands of torri, or gates to you and I. The trails are about 4km long and take up to 2 hours to walk.

It was a pretty cool place, but if truth be told, I wasn’t in the mood by that point. I’m British and a little rain won’t deter me, but there wasn’t a little rain on that particular day, it was pissing it down. It starts to take its toll after a while. Walking for hours in the heat and humidity and my umbrella could only protect me from the thrashing rain so much. My shoes and socks were soaked through. Ultimately, I was braving it all to look at some orange pillars with Japanese and Chinese scrawl on them.

The one joy I got from sightseeing that day was laughing at the other tourists who were wearing traditional Japanese kimono. Not all that funny, but the idiots decided to wear the complete outfit with wooden zori (essentially wooden flip-flops). Walking down a hill in varnished wooden shoes in the rain is possibly one of the worst ideas out there. I started to forget about my own troubles as I watched oversized American tourists dressed like fools repeatedly stumble down hills.

Back to the hostel, showered, in drier clothes and in a much better mood I headed out into the Gion district to find me some geishas. Geishas are “hostesses who mainly entertain male customers”. Not my words, but the words of Wikipedia. After walking around for a while, I think I only saw 1 geisha and about 30 prostitutes.

They didn't have many customers.

I’m not too sure why the geisha look is still desired. If you were going out on the town with your missus and she had that much white make-up on you’d have to have a word with her. Not only that but they’ve got thick, almost plastic-like hair. It’s not a good look. If you put a bit of red lippy and a plastic black wig on an albino girl I don’t think they’d get the same amount of interest…but probably more stares.

Day 2 in Kyoto and I headed for the Tenryu-ji Temple and the bamboo forest.

Someone at the Tenryu-ji Temple has a sense of humour.

The bamboo forest was very cool. It was here that I realised the amount humidity that I was due to face that day. It made for some rather unsightly pictures. Still, at least I’m not Joachim Löw with massive sweat patches AND getting caught adjusting one’s self live on TV and then sniffing it. I did that too, it just wasn’t televised.

Finally, I headed for the Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). This was a beautiful place to visit, the building itself was quite incredible, but I couldn’t truly appreciate it as I was being pushed around by inconsiderate Chinese tourists (the only people worse than them are Brexit voters). After only a short while I made my way out and went for a pint.

Kyoto is a pretty cool place. It’s everything you imagine traditional Japan to be. Apparently there are 1,600 temples and shrines, and I think the only one I didn’t see was Shirley. There was just too much of it and the weather didn’t help either. Oh, and too many people. I don’t like people.