JAPANESE SNAPSHOTS – #39 – OSAKA

My first impression of Osaka was that I wished I stayed in Kyoto, or had gone to Kobe instead. Osaka was recently given the CNN Travel Award as one of the top ten most livable cities in the world. It now sits at number three, right behind Melbourne, Australia and ahead of Calgary. I don’t know how a place so overrun by people could be given such an honor, but apparently the excellent public transportation and the low crime rate were quite popular with the judges. It’s shiny and modern, and if not for all the Japanese people, you’d think you were in some cosmopolitan city in Europe. That said, the place does grow on you once you scratch the surface.

I caught the maroon and tan, private Hankyu train to Osaka, only thirty miles from Kyoto. Japan Rail (JR) Train is the national Japanese line which includes the bullet trains, but there are also many private lines, like the Hankyu Line, that provide short distance service within and between cities. They tend to be a bit nicer than the JR trains.

I got off at Juso. By now I was pretty comfortable dealing with train travel and even managed to get to Osaka without any help. I was really starting to feel at home in Japan.

Juso is a thriving community on the Yodogawa River just north of central Osaka — sort of like Brooklyn is to Manhattan.

After checking into the white, high rise Osaka Plaza Hotel, I caught another train into the heart of Osaka, disembarking at Osaka-Umeda Station, the largest train station in Japan. And I was not prepared for downtown Osaka on a warm and sunny Saturday. It was like Times Square on New Years Eve. Batshit crazy! It was like being swept along in a big human wave. The station was way beyond confusing.

It didn’t take long for the crush of humanity to blow my circuits. I was trying in vain to find a quiet street when I stumbled by pure chance upon the Osaka Sky Vista open top double-decker bus tour and realized that I was saved. Ironically, I was looking for the Hop-On Hop-Off Bus at the time but I couldn’t find it. So, I paid my 1500¥ ($13) and climbed aboard the heavenly bus.

It turned out to be a great way to get oriented and see some of the premier attractions that went by like a movie. I was the only non-Japanese on the bus but they had a wonderful narrative on headphones, so I knew what I was looking at as our big red bus cruised around the insanely crowded city.

We exited Disneyworld and head down Midosuji Street, Osaka’s Main Street, which stretches 4 km from Umeda to Namba. There are 905 stately ginkgo trees along the wide boulevard graced with stupendous sculptures by famous Japanese and foreign artists. It was the first place in Japan that I saw where the electric lines were buried underground, giving it a graceful European feel. And the building heights were limited to 150 feet so the scale, while imposing, was still human.

Osaka is famous for being both the center for textiles and medicine. Most of the big pharma companies have headquarters in Osaka.

And Osaka is often referred to as the “City of 800 Bridges”. It sort of reminded me of Pittsburgh in this regard.

Osakans have an inferiority complex when it comes to Tokyo and they are in constant competition with Japan’s capital to be the biggest and the brightest. For instance, they point with great pride to the Avenida Harukas which is the largest building in Japan at over 900 feet. It was designed by Cesar Pelli who also did the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Garuda means “to bring joy to people’s hearts”. I found it to be a stark metal structure without soul or style, but it’s definitely a big motha.

Inna and I had several discussions about what makes Osaka tick, especially in comparison the Tokyo. I mean, they are both amazing and overwhelming. The best we could come up with was that Osaka feels a bit sterile and impersonal, while Tokyo embraces you like a warm, colorful blanket. Osaka is a wonderful place to visit. But Tokyo is a place where you would love to live.

Next up was Temple Town — the home of the shrine guest houses for the patrons staying for the Sumo contests which are a big part of Osaka culture. The temples were dark grey and brown and lacking in any bright colors and there were electric power lines running like aerial snakes in front of the rectangular white Sumo Stadium perched on a hilltop. After Kyoto, I found the ceremonial center slum-like and depressing. Osaka is definitely not a shrine town.

Nipponbashi Denden Town is known affectionately as “electronics heaven” and the place was crawling with customers. Young men in slick suits stood in front of each establishment like pimps soliciting buyers. Denden Town, is located along what was originally the old Pilgrimage Road. Religion morphs into electronics.

As in Tokyo, one of the signature structures is the 340-feet-tall Tsutenkaku Tower. The silver, bulb-like radio tower is home to the “Lucky God Statue” who will bring you good luck if you rub the soles of his bronze feet. The Tsutenkaku Tower is one of the major landmarks in Osaka. The Japanese love their radio towers! They claim the top is fashioned after the Eiffel Tower and the bottom after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris — though it looked like neither to me. But the one cool thing about it is that the lights at the top tell the weather. Blue means rain. Orange means it will be cloudy. And white means sunny. An interesting historical tidbit about the tower that shows how desperate the Japanese were during WWII was that they scrapped the original tower for metal.

Osaka also has the five-story pagoda Shitennoji Buddhist Temple, Japan’s oldest Buddhist temple. The name of the place means the “human crushed bone temple”. It was erected in 593. There is a very strange art installation consisting of Buddha statues standing under an iron grid comprised of black triangles. Each statue is made from the crushed human bones of the dead which is morbidly meant to symbolize eternal life. It was one of the creepiest things I saw during my visit to Japan.

We cruised by Osaka Castle pretty fast. As with most castles and shrines in Japan, it has burned several times. The last time it went up in smoke, the citizens of Osaka chipped in their pennies to the tune of $75 million to rebuild the central tower of the castle.

We ended our ride near the Umeda Sky Building, the first connected skyscraper in the world and supposedly the best place to watch sunset in Japan.

I had sort of had it with the trains by day two in Osaka — well, not the trains, but rather the incredibly crowded and confusing Osaka rail stations. So, I just decided to walk into town from my hotel in Juso. It was about 1.5 miles to the city center where I planned to catch the Hop-On Hop-Off Bus. Yes, I had done a similar ride the previous day, but that was only for an hour and this tour offered a two day pass, boat ride, and subway pass for ¥30 ($27), and covered much more of the city. Osaka is just too darn big to see all of the key sites, like Osaka Castle, on foot, so the bus would essentially be a convenient open-air taxi that I could get off and on for the next two days.

I walked across the long bridge that spans the Yogadowa River and considered some of the odd similarities between Japanese and Americans I had noticed during the first half of my trip.

For instance, there were many dirt baseball diamonds along the Yodogawa River — which is a beautiful greenway with paved bike trails — where players of all ages competed intensely, wearing sporty uniforms with serious coaches and umpires running the show. The Japanese LOVE baseball!

And then there are fireworks. The Japanese virtually worship their fireworks. Towns spend millions of dollars and compete against one another between July and September during the summer and fall festivals. To put that in perspective, your standard 4th of July fireworks show will cost the average American city about $20,000. They have a whole street in Osaka, Matsuyamachi Street, that sells nothing but fireworks the whole year round.

The “Wonder Loop” tour bus was all bright colors with big comfortable seats and it was virtually empty — the only calm place in the Osaka human storm that I found during my entire stay.

At many of the busy intersections throughout the city there were guys in blue uniforms sitting on folding chairs, counting the number and types of vehicles on an abacus-type device as they went by. For what purpose I have no idea. I assumed that while a trip wire would give them traffic volume, it wouldn’t differentiate between cars, truck, motorcycles, and bikes. Plus, it was a job for someone who needed a purpose and some income. I wondered where they went to the bathroom but was afraid to ask.

A haircut will cost you ¥1000 ($9). And barber shops are always packed.

Tokoyaki is the most popular food dish in Osaka. Takoyaki is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus, tempura scraps, pickled ginger, and green onion. It’s awesome!

Osakans are known for their love of food and money. And they are big time shoppers.

The Shin Sai Bashi Shopping District is the home of the original Osaka business district — though the whole damn city seems to be a never-ending series of shopping areas. SSB is where you can bargain for a discount which is how people buy their goods there. You dicker. That doesn’t work in most of Japan where the price is the price.

American Village is next to SSB and it’s the place in Osaka to find the hottest new foreign trends and hear the latest music. It is very popular with young Japanese.

There is a very unique building in the Shin Sai Bashi section that has an hourglass-shaped rock climbing wall built into the front entrance, and the whole wall goes up and down on a red hydraulic lift.

Like our Dollar Stores in America, there are numerous ¥1 shops scattered around Osaka where everything costs just one yen. No, really, EVERYTHING is just one yen. And they sell a lot of produce.

Japanese Souvenirs began in Osaka so that pilgrims could prove they had walked the Temple Pilgrimage Road.

One of the things that Osaka can not rival Tokyo is their Fish Market which is laughably small in comparison.

Japanese English is weird, for instance, a condo is called a “mansion”.

Japan is situated on one of the world’s biggest volcanic hot spots. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred on the subduction boundary of the Pacific Plate sinking underneath Japan along the Japan Trench. This megathrust earthquake caused giant tsunami waves to form which eventually caused massive destruction to the coastline of northern Japan.

As a result, the Japanese are very earthquake conscious and their newer buildings are designed to withstand a 9.0 shake. For instance, the bathrooms in high rise hotels are single, plugin units that float suspended above the floor, which is a really weird sensation when you sit down to take a crap on the strange electric toilets.

And Osaka is surrounded by water, which puts them in a classic double-bind predicament. Rule #1 is: When an earthquake hits, you immediately get out of the building. But a tsunami often follows the earthquake and if one hits Osaka, most of the city would be completely inundated with water. So, in Osaka, you first leave the building, and if it’s still standing after the quake, you quickly run back upstairs to avoid being drowned. Now, how’s that for a great metaphor for life and death?

On my walk across the pink Yogadawa Bridge on a lovely Sunday morning, my last full day in Osaka, I came upon several gardeners, watering some decorative ginkgo trees in attractive white planters. The planters were ingenious. They had a nozzle on the top corner where the hose screwed in and there was a little drain screen at the bottom.

Pachinko parlors and arcades are hugely popular in Japan and the noise inside from the machines is deafening. People, young and old, but mostly males, wait in long lines for them to open every morning. Supposedly, the Japanese computer games are light years ahead of what we have in the U.S. And there was even a big outdoor festival happening one morning over near the Umeda Sky Building.

I absolutely loved the spitting green bear in front of Osaka’s newest and snazziest hotel, the Grand Front, offering stellar views of the Umeda Sky Building and an expansive open air plaza where some sort of event is always taking place. On Saturday and Sunday it was “Outdoor Festa 2018” with bands and all sorts of booths with hip recreational gear, including Chums from Hurricane, Utah where I used to roam in my Canyon daze. The salesperson had no idea what or where Utah was but he was happy to sell me some sun glass gear.

As if the largest and craziest train station in Japan isn’t big enough, they are building a brand new and even bigger terminal between the current station and the Umeda Sky Tower in advance of the 2020 Olympics, meaning some of the events must be taking place in Osaka as well as Tokyo.

The Namba Park aerial garden is another huge shopping area with 250 shops. It was awarded the top aerial garden in the world by CNN and is a very popular place for young lovers. It was originally the home of a very popular baseball stadium.

I walked around the Dotonbori Teppan-Jinja section of town which is famous for its noodles and sushi shops. The food was out of this world! And there are lovely canals and stone bridges reminiscent of Ghent, Belgium without, of course, the Medieval architecture.

Along one canal I stumbled on another very unique yellow ferris wheel suspended to the outside of a U-shaped girder, it’s little red-circle cars rotating slowly clockwise like small rooms. It sat atop a very popular arcade.

And next door was the Tako-Yaki Kukuro restaurant which is famous not only for its octopus pies but also the big red octopus on the front of the building. Many of the eateries in the area have large plastic animals on the front facades of their establishments and tourists flock there. I saw more foreigners in thirty minutes than any place in Osaka.

As part of the Osaka Wonder Loop Bus ride I also got to take a one hour boat ride along the Doton Canal to the Okawa River. Along the way, we passed under little bridges that reminded me of Venice, highways, train lines, and they even threw in a lock to raise our little boat high enough to reach the river.

When I got of off the boat I decided to hike the meandering stone path along the river back into the town center. It was a long trek, but walking is the best way to see a city and you are always rewarded with curiosities and beauty.

After three days exploring Osaka I felt like we had seen a lot and had some fun. Then again, we never made it down to the Bay Area of town where they have the world renowned Aquarium, Cosmo Tower, the Asia Pacific Trade Center, Glion Museum, the Red erector set Minato Harbor Bridge, AND Universal Studios.