We slept in a bit today and then had a quick breakfast of granola, orange juice, and yogurt.
As Kuniko and I walked towards the Shin-Osaka station we noticed that there were a lot of students on a school trip walking through the area. The students stared at me, and some of them giggled and gestured. The station is a central hub for travel because it has the Shinkansen bullet train line. It might have been the first time for the students to visit a big city, and maybe the first time to see a foreigner in person.
Sometimes I take for granted what a great situation I’m in – I’m centrally located and it’s easy to get to a big city when I want to. There are a lot of very isolated parts of Japan, either on islands or so far away from train stations that it’s a big deal to go to the city. Seeing the student’s eyes go big when they saw me was a good reminder for me that I’ve got it pretty good. I wonder how I would feel about the JET program if I had to make a four hour trip to get to a supermarket.
Kuniko had to catch a train to go to work, so she gave me her apartment key and I went another direction towards Osaka castle. Himeji castle is the big castle to see in Japan – it’s the original castle, so you walk through an authentic atmosphere all the way to the top.
Osaka castle on the other hand is a rebuilt replica. It’s still cool, and there’s some great exhibits inside, but still there’s something strange about taking an elevator to the top.
I took the Osaka loop line from Osaka station, and I was there within ten minutes. I was surprised that it was so close. The grounds and park surrounding the castle were huge, and the moat was surprisingly far away from the castle itself. I walked around the park and enjoyed the scenery, and even grabbed a snack at one of the booths around the castle. The guy was nice enough to give me tea as well.
A couple of students came up to me and asked me to answer some questions for a survey. They did the whole thing in English from some notes that they had. I took the survey and answered their questions. I noticed that the title of their survey was “Osaka Castle Gaijin Survey”.
There were a lot of foreigners around the castle touring, so I imagine they weren’t having a tough time with digging up people for the survey.
I enjoyed the view from the top of the castle, and took my time walking through the castle. The exhibits were nice – the suits of armor were first rate, and it was scary to see them there empty. One thing I never knew was that they had face plates that had scary expressions on them to scare their enemies. It was spooky to see the face plates grimacing at you even though there was no face behind it.
Continuing to explore I crossed the moat and went through a business commercial district. There was a shopping center where I found some interesting things – there was a restaurant for dogs, and a store that had Irish pint glasses. Oh yeah.
Finally I wrapped up my trip and went back to Kuniko’s apartment. I bought some salami and pepperjack cheese (expensive!) and stuck them in her refrigerator for her to find later, and then I sat back and watched the Hanshin Tigers game for about half an hour.
Kuniko got home soon thereafter, and then we went out for dinner. We both had a sushi craving, so we sat down for some excellent onigiri sushi. Kuniko and I ordered our favorites, and we just ate and talked, catching up on each other’s day.
We stopped in at Starbucks on the way back home and saw lots of foreigners there too. None of them seemed to friendly. I think it’s a very normal thing for foreigners to get used to being special and the only one around, so when they see someone that impinges on their uniqueness, maybe they aren’t so happy about it. For my part I just smile and nod.
I headed back home to Futami around 8 p.m., ready to go to work the next day. It was interesting to come into my home and see things all laid out from Saturday night – I dropped everything and ran out the door, and so things were all ready for me to crawl right into bed and hit the sack.
