Osaka Trip

Last Sunday I took a trip to downtown Osaka with my friend Alex. Neither of us had ever been there before, and we did not come with any particular plan in mind, so the day started off with a certain amount of aimless wandering. We arrived in Osaka at a little after 11 in the morning and just started walking in whatever direction looked most interesting. That worked for a little while, until we ended up in a rather shady area of town, at which point we turned around and headed back in the opposite direction. There were very few people around, and most of the shops were still closed, which we accredited to the fact that either people weren’t awake yet, or things were just closed because it was Sunday. (Many things in Japan seem to be closed on Sunday.) Eventually we came across a map of the city with various items such as semi-famous temples and points of historic interest pointed out, after which point we finally got some direction.

The points of historic interest turned out to be a letdown; most of them were just little monuments for things that used to exist there in historic Osaka, but the explanations were all in Japanese that I couldn’t really understand, and there wasn’t much else to see. They eventually led us to the famous Osaka castle, which thankfully was really impressive and well-maintained. It was at one point the home of feudal warlords in ancient Japan, and now the interior has been converted into a kind of museum of that era, and from the top floor there is a view over the city. (Japanese history buffs might know that it was built by Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the 2nd great unifier of Japan.) We did not want to pay the 600-yen entrance fee, but we did cross the moat and walk around the castle and see pretty much everything there was to see without paying. I definitely plan to go back there at some point to get the full experience, although maybe not until the sakura trees come back to life, which I think would make the image a lot more dramatic and less bleak.



Me in front of Osaka castle

After that we headed toward the commercial shopping area, at which point we finally found where all the people were. First we went to the Dotonbori, a wide alleyway along a river that was home to a sensory overload of lights, shops, and restaurants. It was extremely crowded and noisy, but pretty interesting—it is really what you think of when you think of pop culture in Japan. There were shops jammed together everywhere, and people lined up blocking traffic at stands selling takoyaki and crepes and other foods all over the place. There was even one center open 24 hours a day in which you could use the internet, read manga, etc. (Densha Otoko anyone?), and it contained showers and a tanning booth, so you could essentially live there and still look like you get out! Pretty crazy.



The Dotonbori


Outside Dotonbori at sunset

After that we ended in Shinsaibashi, which is a mile-long covered alleyway full of stores and restaurants. It was much narrower than Dotonbori, but still pretty crowded; if you did not stay on the left side of traffic, you would probably get trampled. Most of the stores were fashionable women’s clothing places, but there were also some more quirky ones, such as a chopstick store and a store selling expensive clothing and individually packaged treats for your yappy lap-sized dog. Once we got to the end of Shinsaibashi we ate dinner and went home.

I finally got to experience the 2 famous Osaka specialty foods that I had heard so much about, takoyaki (pronounced tako-yaki) and okonomiyaki (oko-no-miyaki). You can buy both of them at stands and in convenience stores pretty often, but now I got to have them “for real.” I got the takoyaki on the grounds of Osaka castle, where there were multiple stands selling takoyaki as well as ice cream, soft drinks, and such for tourists. Takoyaki are balls of dough with a piece of octopus in the middle, and when I got mine they were served with benito flakes (dried fish) and something green on top. (Dried green onions maybe?) They cool down on the outside deceptively quickly, but the inside stays molten and painfully hot for a long time after. For the first takoyaki that I ate, I popped the whole thing into my mouth, which was a big mistake. Major pain. I think the key is to bite them in half and let the second half cool before you put the rest into your mouth, although even so it is still pretty explosive. It was not until I had gotten to the 6th or 7th one that they were actually acceptably warm and I could eat them without my eyes watering and face turning red.



Takoyaki!

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Hanamaru for okonomiyaki. Finding the restaurant was a completely lucky chance—we had just exited Shinsaibashi and were on a somewhat poorly lit and not-so-crowded street when we saw the plastic food.



The plastic food

Since we were looking for any place that served okonomiyaki, we decided to go in through the humble little door. It turned out that the restaurant was in fact rather large, very long and narrow, and it was really pretty nice. The floors were all wooden, and you take off your shoes at the entrance and put them in a little locker with a key. The tables were low and were covered with a hot grill, and customers sit in front of them on cushions and put their feet into a lower heated recessed area. It was a much more traditional Japanese design than I had experienced at any of the restaurants I’d visited since I arrived. The back page of the menu was devoted entirely to different kinds of okonomiyaki that you can order, such as beef, shrimp, etc. Not knowing which was best, Alex and I both decided to order the “Hanamaru special” okonomiyaki, which I believe contains all of the possible toppings. They arrived at the table pre-made, and the waitress slid them off of a plate onto the grill where they immediately sizzled, and then we cut them up with little metal spatulas that were provided and ate them.

It is hard to describe okonomiyaki in a way that makes them sound appetizing...they are shaped rather like pancakes, and I think that the basic ingredients include egg, flour, and cabbage, and they are always topped with barbecue sauce and mayonnaise. Since we got the Hanamaru special, they also contained beef, pork, shrimp, octopus, onions, scallops, and I don’t know what else, and like the takoyaki, were topped by benito flakes.

I would like to take a break here and say that benito flakes are extremely creepy. They are really popular in Japanese cuisine, and they are used to top a variety of different foods as well as to flavor broths. They seem pretty innocent; they pretty much look like flesh-colored thin pieces of sawdust, but the thing is that when they are heated/exposed to steam they writhe in an extremely creepy and insectlike way, moving slowly and deliberately back and forth in directions apparently independent of their neighboring flakes. I am not sure why they do that. I heard that benito is made by compressing fish meat really tightly and drying it out and then shaving it, so there are definitely no nerves or anything like that left in there. Anyway. Creepy. But they still taste good.

Ever since I got to Japan, I decided that I better just eat whatever is in front of me and stop to think about it later. No matter how weird looking it is, or whether I would have absolutely refused to eat it if I saw it at home a year ago, I just swallow it and put it out of my mind. For example, my host mother sometimes bakes entire fish and then puts the whole things, eyes, tail, and all, on a plate and serves them. Each person gets their own individual fish so it’s not like she’ll cut it up for you at the table. Just don’t think for too long and chew. The same philosophy applies in the case of the okonomiyaki; although I surely would not have eaten that if I were at home, I did in fact quite enjoy it, and it wasn’t one of those the-first-time-you-eat-it-you-will-hate-it-and-only-when-you’ve-gotten-used-to-the-flavor-after-the-10th-time-you-eat-it-you-will-learn-to-enjoy-it-foods like natto (fermented soybeans that I dislike, but apparently will come to like if I eat them enough times). It was really pretty good. The description sounds totally bizarre, but it is famous for a reason, and all I can say is that you have to try it to appreciate it.



The 2 okonomiyakis grilling, waiting to be eaten

After eating an extremely limited amount of meat over the past several years, it’s been a bit of a shock having it served at almost every meal, usually as the main course. I appreciate meat when it is well-prepared, and I can taste good quality, but I have to say, I think I’ve just lost my taste for it. Although I liked the okonomiyaki, I think if I get it again I’ll ask for one with just vegetables. All I want to eat now is vegetables. Lots of vegetables. Especially leafy greens. And fruit. I have no desire to eat any more meat of any kind. Don’t tell anyone, but this morning when my host mother served me sausages at breakfast, I secretly wrapped them up in plastic and threw them away later. (Then I felt bad. Maybe I should tell her to stop serving them.) Just not appetizing.


On a completely different note (and I do realize this post is getting long), I think the thing that struck me most about downtown Osaka was the presence of religion and spirituality. The 2 main religions in Japan are Shinto (literally, “the path of the gods”), and Buddhism. Their influence is visible everywhere, yet almost every Japanese person that you meet, especially among the younger generation, will claim (rather determinedly, I might add) that they are not religious at all and believe in no god. I guess that the religions are more a lifestyle and mindset than an actual religion, then; neither of them is really the same as the Western sense of religion, consisting of distinct activities in your weekly schedule devoted to the religion that are separate from the rest of your life, such as attending Mass on Sundays. Particularly with Shinto, Japan’s indigenous religion, there is no clear way in which you “practice” the religion, and rather, it has subtle effects on your daily activities. The main idea is that there are kami (which lie somewhere between being gods and spirits) everywhere, and if you are kind and respectful to them, then they will positively influence your life in an ambiguous but meaningful way. Thus, even the supposedly non-religious Japanese will sometimes go to shrines and pray to the kami in the same way that you might throw a coin in a wishing well and believe, in a way, that it will give you good luck, although I’m sure I am over-simplifying a complex matter. Praying at shrines is the most distinguishable practice of Shinto, but it has effects on the Japanese lifestyle in other deeper ways that I can’t describe right now because it’s late and I’m tired. The same goes for Buddhism. Generally only the older generation of Japanese actually identifies as Buddhist, but it is really quite widespread. My host parents both actively practice Buddhism (and identify as such), but their practice is less differentiable and more integrated into their lifestyle than one would picture. As with Shinto, almost all Japanese will turn to the Buddhist deities in some complex way when they are in need. Maybe this should be the subject of a later post. Anyway, my point is that despite their outward beliefs, most Japanese in fact practice a combination of Shinto and Buddhism on a daily basis.

What brought all of that up is that in spite of the fact that Osaka is a bustling city full of stores and restaurants and skyscrapers, it is choc full of shrines and temples. (The difference between the two is that shrines are Shinto and temples are Buddhist.) They are everywhere. Almost every block or two there will be a little gap in between two office buildings, and behind a stone wall there will be a quiet and serene garden that anyone can freely enter and leave, and a traditional-looking Japanese building behind in which religious activities are carried out. When you are in the garden, it is hard to believe that you are in the middle of a major world city. It is just quiet and peaceful, and it is everywhere. Different shrines and temples have different purposes. I think that we stumbled upon a shrine for a business kami, because in it there were several pieces of cloth painted with names of local businesses that were obviously praying for prosperity. One of the most interesting ones, I thought, was a little shrine in front of a really modern-looking building. In front of the building were a little pond and a bridge that spanned it, like they sometimes add to make buildings seem less industrial, so I thought I’d walk across the bridge for kicks because it was there. When I got to the middle I suddenly discovered a small shrine inside what I thought was just post-modern-looking sculpture. Inside of the shiny metal casing were incense and candles and a little figurine and a bell attached to a rope that you pull to get the gods’ attention. It was so unexpected, yet awesome.



The unexpected shrine in front of an office building


A temple in the middle of the city

Okay, I’ve written enough for now. I think there was something wrong with the conditioner that I used tonight. I just took a shower but now my hair feels sticky and weird. Um.